Dickens and Play

Dickens was a firm believer in the need to cultivate a child’s imagination and to allow children time for play at a time when child labor and corporal punishment in schools were still normal. A toy theatre for an adaptation of Oliver Twist and the scrap figures of characters from his works would be used by children and adults alike to bring his works to life.

Pollock’s Juvenile Drama: Oliver Twist, or the Parish Boy’s Progress. London: Benjamin Pollock, [1870s?] 

Characters from Dickens. Series I and II. S. Hildesheimer & Co., [1890s?]