DeGolyer Library will celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of one of the world’s most popular novelists with “Charles Dickens, 1811-2011: An Exhibition from the Collection of Stephen Weeks,” opening January 19, 2012. Weeks, a member of the SMU Libraries Executive Board, began collecting books while in high school. Weeks’ collection includes 1,000 volumes of Dickens’ first novel, The Pickwick Papers. The novel was published originally as a 19-month serial beginning in March 1836. “In The Pickwick Papers you can see Dickens develop as an author,” says Weeks, who lives in Los Angeles with his wife, Cyndi. Their daughter, Jennifer, is an SMU senior. Weeks’ collection also contains 2,000 Pickwick Papers illustrations, including proof sets and hand-tinted works. The exhibit will continue through May 11, 2012. The illustration at left is from the Stephen Weeks collection.
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