The desk where Charles Dickens wrote Great Expectations is finally on public display thanks to a £780,000 grant.
The Charles Dickens Museum in London has been given the grant to buy the desk and chair, which has always been in private ownership.
They had been passed down through the Dickens family after his death in 1870, but were auctioned for the Great Ormond Street Charitable Trust in 2004.
Dickens used the desk in his final home in Gad's Hill Place in Kent.
Our Mutual Friend and his unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood were also penned at the desk.
The furniture would have been sold at public auction if it was not for the grant from the National Heritage Memorial Fund (NHMF).
Made famous in two paintings begun the year he died, the Empty Chair by Luke Fildes and Dickens' Dream by RW Buss, the desk and chair are already on display at the Charles Dickens Museum at the author's former home.
Robert Moye, director of the Charles Dickens Museum, said: "We are delighted to have been able to acquire Charles Dickens' iconic writing desk and chair for permanent display in his study at 48 Doughty Street.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-32101255We're a bit careless with our history. We have too much as is.
Reminds me of a joke though. A couple are doing the tour of the battlefields of the war of Independence. Everywhere they go are signs saying "Washington slept here." It's every house, every inn, even some barns and shops. Eventually, the wife turns to her husband and says, loud enough for everyone to hear: "I don't like Washington."
"Why not?" the husband replied, as the others on the tour gasped.
"For a married man, he sure slept around."
