Dickens Project Library

Serial parts of David Copperfield, 1849-50. Ada B. Nisbet Archive, University of California, Santa Cruz.

Dickens Project Library

The Dickens Project Library is located at UCSC and is accessed via a staircase located outside the Cowell/Stevenson Dining Hall. The library includes various editions of all of Charles Dickens's novels, historical and literary criticism on Dickens, Dickens biographies, Dickens's letters and journals, as well as videos, DVDs, and audio recordings of various Dickens adaptations. The library also includes an extensive collection of works by other Victorian novelists and historians, books on Victorian literature and culture, and a vast array of literary, historical, and social criticism, both classic and contemporary. The library is available to students and scholars of literature who have made prior arrangement with the Project Assistant Director, Courtney Mahaney. Our holdings may be searched under the username “dickensproject” via the online cataloging system, Libib.

 

Ada Nisbet Archive

The crown jewel of the Dickens Project library is the Ada Nisbet Archive, the private collection of UCLA Professor Emerita Ada Blanche Nisbet (1907-1994). Professor Nisbet was a noted scholar of Charles Dickens who taught for many years at UCLA. The archive includes rare first editions of most of Dickens's novels (including serial parts), in addition to classic works of Victorian literature and literary criticism that are difficult to find today. Much of the rare material included in the archive is housed in Special Collections, located at UCSC in McHenry Library. Scholars interested in working with these materials need to make arrangements with Special Collections two weeks prior to the visitation date. The archive also includes unpublished materials assembled by Professor Nisbet in connection with her ambitiously conceived but never completed “International Bibliography of Charles Dickens.” Scholars interested in consulting these materials should make contact with the Dickens Project office in advance of their visit in order to make proper arrangements.