THE DICKENS FELLOWSHIP
 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Currently, the Fellowship collects a modest $20 per year in dues to cover administrative, postage, and printing costs. Your dues put you in touch with Dickensians all over the world and right here in town!

Globally, your membership grants you free access to the Dickens House Museum in London and entitles you to advance notice about the International Fellowship's conference, other branch events and activities, and new publications of and about Dickens's life and works. Members of our branch have standing invitations to visit with other branches in the US and beyond, and when the Philadelphia Branch hosts the International Conference in 2007, the Pittsburgh Branch will host a welcoming tea.

Furthermore, the Pittsburgh Branch is enacting its determination to reach out to other societies and organizations whose interests and exhibits include nineteenth-century topics. In our 2006-2007 season, we held a joint meeting with the Jane Austen Society of Western Pennsylvania and reaped the benefits of our contact with the The Magic Lantern Society. Our rambles take us to many of the best-preserved nineteenth-century structures in and around Pittsburgh and to historical societies where we learn what Dickens saw when he visited the area, like our steamboat excursion along a portion of the same stretch of the Ohio River that Dickens himself sailed. Our meetings often feature guest speakers, like Phiz's great-great-granddaughter Valerie Browne Lester or historical re-enacters, who bring Dickens and his contemporaries to us. Queen Victoria herself has been known to drop by on occasion.

Therefore, just about any and all matters related to Charles Dickens from all over the world reach our membership, who frequently share our serendipitous and deliberately sought discoveries in our newsletter and at our monthly meetings. If you're looking for the nearest or biggest Dickens festival or conducting scholarship on his works, the fellowship is a valuable resource.

If you'd like to join the Fellowship, please mail a personal or cashier's check for $20 made payable to "The Dickens Fellowship" to the address below.