Dickens, Schuler & Bellairs II

We’re celebrating the 200th anniversary of celebrated author Charles Dickens’s birth this year. Born February 7, 1812, in Landport, Portsmouth, England, Dickens created a plethora of memorable characters with whimsical names across a dozen major novels and numerous short stories.

Marshall restaurateur Win Schuler was a fan (based on the 1948 renovation of one of his restaurant's dining rooms into the illustrated and impressive Dickens Room) and so was John Bellairs. We explained that connection in a previous post and so we’ll just highlight this month’s characters.

Featured here are Richard "Dick" Swiveller from 1840's The Old Curiosity Shop, who enjoys quoting and adapting literature to describe his situations, and the founder of the Pickwick Club himself, Mr. Samuel Pickwick - who in the text of The Posthumous Papers of the Pickwick Club (1836) (better known simply as The Pickwick Papers) is usually portrayed by illustrators as a round-faced, clean-shaven, portly gentleman wearing spectacles.