Dickens Pop Up Exhibit in Special Collections and Archives

For the three weeks of December leading up to the holiday break, Special Collections and Archives will be presenting a rotating pop-up exhibit of selections from the Dickens collections. Each Tuesday a fresh selection of materials will be placed in our newly constructed seminar room.*  All are welcome to stop by between 11 and 4:30, Tuesday through Friday (see Library hours for any exceptions).

The pop-up will heavily feature illustrated editions, adaptations, and ephemera related to A Christmas Carol, both because of the time of year and the history of the collection at DePaul. In the 1920s, Chicago executive Samuel Baldwin Bradford began collecting books, serials, pamphlets, illustrations, ephemera, and other memorabilia associated with Charles Dickens. Bradford sought to comprehensively collect illustrated editions of Dickens’s work, especially A Christmas Carol. Bradford’s collection was later acquired by a DePaul College of Law graduate, Nathan H. Schwartz, and his legal associate, Jack Davidson. The two donated the complete collection created by Bradford to DePaul in 1972. At that time there were 400 books by Dickens, in parts and first complete editions; 210 “extra-illustrated” volumes of Dickens’s works; approximately 300 books about Dickens as well as the journal, The Dickensian; 35 volumes of ephemeral printed materials; and 500 prints, posters, memorabilia and objects.

The collection grew over the years with additional donations and purchases from rare book dealers. A ceramic Dickens Christmas village was donated in 2009 on behalf of Robert E. Watson, another DePaul graduate. The William George Shuster A Christmas Carol collection was donated to DePaul in 2018 and contains a number of more modern, popular and commercial interpretations of A Christmas Carol. Shuster enjoyed exhibiting his collection each year for guests, and SPCA is pleased to be able to continue that tradition this year.

For more information about these materials, please consult the Charles Dickens collections bibliography, and the library catalog and finding aid for the William George Shuster A Christmas Carol collection. If there are specific items you would like us to exhibit or you would like to consult on a visit to our reading room, please contact us using our Ask SPCA form.

*Special Collections and Archives recently embarked on a donor-funded renovation project to add a seminar room adjacent to our reading room. Please watch for an announcement in the new year about the naming and dedication of this space.