Worcester bookshop, Script Haven, will host a festival celebrating the great writer, Charles Dickens, marking 170 years since the novelist visited the county of Worcestershire during a national tour. The Great Recitations Dickens Festival will take place at Script Haven, on High Street, Worcester, over the weekend from 7th to 8th February 2026.
The author, known for many much-loved classics including Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, and David Copperfield will be commemorated with a line-up of literary events at the bookshop and in Cathedral Square including, a visit by historian, author and Dickens’ three-time great-granddaughter, Lucinda Dickens Hawksley.
The bookshop is already linked to Dickens, with a blue plaque installed in recognition of the time Dickens visited the city to read A Christmas Carol in 1858. Dickens read from A Christmas Carol at the former Public Hall in Worcester, and while in the city visited the Swan Hotel, the site of the Script Haven Bookshop in the present day.
Leena Batchelor, owner of Script Haven, said: “I’m incredibly excited that Great Recitations is back again, especially as we have a direct Dickens descendant joining us.
“It has been fascinating learning about Script Haven’s and Worcester’s connection to Dickens, something that we get asked about regularly by our customers and which I’m always excited to talk about.”
