Charles Dickens memorabilia is extremely desirable and can be very valuable.

And it was desirable, if not always valuable, in the author’s lifetime.

Celebrity culture isn’t as modern as we might like to think.

And Dickens was very much a celebrity: famed for reading tours of extraordinary length and popularity. His stories were read aloud to paying crowds who couldn’t afford - or couldn’t read - them themselves. His characters, their narratives sold in soap-opera style series, became real people to his audiences.

Dickens in 1851, at the height of his powers, and a major international celebrity, perhaps the first in history. 

They’re still making Dickens collectibles today, featuring both the man and his creations.

Here’s how to collect this extraordinary man

Who was Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens was born in Portsmouth in 1812.

His childhood was famously deprived, with a father in debtor’s prison and work in a factory.

But the Victorian publishing industry was commendably open to talent, and Dickens essentially worked his way up from the bottom with his extraordinary eye for character and life.

The Pickwick Papers of 1836 was his breakthrough, and after that come a string of titles, characters and lines that can still be dropped into conversation today: A Christmas Carol, Scrooge, Tiny Tim, Oliver Twist,Great Expectations.

Though there was some critical sneering at Dickens’ style and some of his work hasn’t aged well, he has remained consistently popular, read, and admired around the world to this day.

The social commentary in his novels was backed by some real-life campaigning and he was a highly visible public figure.

Dickens may be he first person about whom the word “celebrity” was used, and his readings - accompanied by fan hysteria, fainting, and crowds to match The Beatles - helped create the business of ticket touting.

He has every ingredient, including a somewhat tangled personal life, to be a collectible figure now and for the conceivable future.

Mr Bumble from Oliver Twist, one of many Dickens characters to come vividly to life in writing, illustration and performance. 

Collecting Chalres Dickens books

The most obvious way to collect Dickens is through his novels first. You might then add his poetry, drama, journalism and other non-fiction.

Even assembling a full set of his published works in modern, paperback editions is quite a task.

Serious collectors after serious value and rarity will soon gravitate to particular editions, especially first editions, and perhaps signed books.

As with most collectibles, prices are hard to be hard-and-fast about and will vary hugely depending on the individual peculiarities or each piece, its condition, rarity and so on.

For example, a book sale site listing Dickens first editions has prices ranging from £200 to £85,000 for Dickens bound first editions.

That top price is for a relatively little known travel book, Pictures from Italy, and is signed and inscribed.

A first edition Pickwick Papers will cost you somewhere around £2,000 to £3,000.

Nicholas Nickleby as a magazine serial that sold in huge numbers. 

Dickens wrote such a huge amount and has been so popular for so long and so widely that it’s wise for any collector looking to specialise quite narrowly, perhaps on a geographical area, a time period, the major works or even a single title.

To the interest of Dickens’ published work can be added the rich history of illustrated works.

Many Dickens stories were originally published in magazines with engravings, some of which still colour our mental image of Dickens’ creations to this day.

Dickens worked with some of the best-known illustrators of his era and collecting their work is an interesting and worthy sideline to a collection of the author’s work.

Perhaps the most valuable Dickens item ever sold was a signed copy of A Tale of Two Cities inscribed for fellow author Mary Ann Evans, who wrote as George Elliot. It sold for £275,000 in 2014.

Collect Charles Dickens letters and papers

Manuscripts and manuscript extracts are extremely rare and valuable.

Dickens kept many of his own papers and a lot of them are in museum and archive collections.

He cottoned on quite early in his career that papers related to his books would become valuable and tried to recover many papers that would have been destroyed during the normal run of the publishing process.

That means those fragments that do exist are costly. A single page of Pickwick Papers manuscript used during the printing process will cost around £100,000.

Dickens super-celebrity made him an attention magnet, and he is probably one of the most written-to people in British history.

He wrote a huge number of letters and signed various types of paper for fans and coresponded with people from every strata of Victorian society. 

His letters include what you might expect from an enthusiastic corespondent of his era with a lively interest in public and literary affairs. Some of Dickens letters are obviously as considered and designed to entertain as his published works.

But they also include letters written specifically for fans, including short extracts of his work that he seems to have written out for fans and signed.

An extraordinary Dickens letter, with a lengthy quotation from David Copperfield, was in a university library before coming to the open market. 

Dickens letters vary hugely in value, but you should budget tens of thousands of pounds for the most interesting pieces.

Dickens' letters have been published several times, but he hated the idea of private corespondence being made public and as a result burned many, many thousands of the letters that were sent to him in huge bonfires. 

Buy Charles Dickens autographs

Attach it to a letter and you add value, but Charles Dickens’ autograph on its own - providing its properly authenticated - is a valuable property in its own right.

Dickens signature alone - in good condition - is valuable and comes in all shapes and sizes. 

A good quality signature should be worth getting on for £2,000 in its own right.

Dickens may well have had an idea of the value of his autograph. The styles of his signature vary widely and have been studied by experts. Some include enormous flourishes that surely convey a man eager to show the world his star status. Others, more personal, are simple initials.

Buy Charles Dickens memorabilia

Charles Dickens is not alone in inspiring memorabilia, but he is one of the earliest modern figures to do so and one of the few with a serious literary reputation.

So, if your collecting yen extends beyond the man and his first-order works then you can explore Dickens World.

Any Dickens collector should certainly consider adding a set of Dickens commemorative stamps. There are UK issues from 2012 and 1989 to get you started - and they’re very good value.

Yes, you can even own Charles Dickens' hair.

A £2 coin from 2012 is unlikely to ever achieve great value (more than 8 million were issued), but the Dickens design is a very nice one and it’s a nice memento that you can add for free to your collection if it turns up in your change.

Dickens collectibles can be very old, and they’re still being produced today.

Buy Charles Dickens film and TV memorabilia

Dickens excelled at larger than life characters and cliff-hanger plots.

It’s no surprise he’s been adapted for stage and screen hundreds of times.

Just last year, the BBC splashed out on a big-budget Great Expectations, with Olivia Colman burnishing her National Treasure status with a leading role.

You can be sure that somewhere a content executive of some sort is considering what can be done with another Dickens story.

And, this is another dimension for Dickens collectors to explore.

A wall full of Dickens film posters would be an ornament to any Dickens-loving home, perhaps starting out with the Ealing Studios Nicholas Nickelby from 1947. You’ll need several hundred pounds to get a good copy of that poster.

Sir Alec Guinness, here in Great Expectations, played a number of Dickens characters on film. 

Again, because the Dickens screen world is so diverse and massive it would be wise to specialise. You could make a fantastic collection by focussing on, for example, just the Dickens films (Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, Scrooge) that Sir Alex Guinness appeared in.

Film and TV always offers several layers of interest to collectors. It is heavy with high profile stars (and their autographs); its production produces costumes, props, scripts and stills, and promotion can involve huge marketing campaigns, memorabilia and more.

Dickens, who revelled in being at the cutting edge of the communication technology of his age, would surely be working in online streaming were he to live in the 21st century.

Buy Dickens memorabilia today

Charles Dickens is an established historical figure.

His reputation may ebb and flow and his work enjoy and suffer critical reappraisal but he will never vanish from the public imagation or the record.

And there’s no reason to think that the relics of his life won’t be comparable with William Shakespeare in time.

You can see some original Dickens papers for sale here.

And if you’d like to know more about collecting then just give us your email address here. We’ll find out your specialisms and taylor what we send to you. We’ll let you know when we have new arrivals and you need never miss out again.