The great Brisitsh novelist and social commentator Charles Dickens requested that there be no monument or memorial to him.
However there are two statues in the world of Charles Dickens. One is in Philedelphia USA and one in Centennial Parklands.
The Charles Dickens statue was commissioned by Sir Henry Parkes in 1889 and installed in the Parklands in 1891.
The statue mysteriously disappeared. The past few years has seen a huge search by the NSW Dickens Society. It was uncovered in the Blue Mountain- missing its head!
The statue was reconstructed by the stonemasons of NSW Heritage Services.
You HAVE to visit this imposing marble statue, so right for a Victorian Parklands with its heritage of writers. Noble Prize winner for Literature Patrick White’s ashes are scattered in the Parklands.
Susannah Fullerton,President of the Jane Austen Society of Australia and author, gave a funny, sad, moving recitation of the heads cut off in Dickens’ works.
Minister for Major Events Hon Kevin Greene, her Excellency Professor Marie Bashir Governor of NSW as well as senior stonemason Paul Thurloe gave wonderful speeches. Lots of Writing Associations were represented there including the Bronte Association and the Dickens Society. I was there wearing the NSW Writers Centre hat, as well as being a Dickens fan and an author myself.
Charles Dickens is officially unveiled.
Keep this date open:
200th birthday of Charles Dickens 7the February 2012.
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