Each day we lift a pen or pencil to write, from signing a bill to writing a letter to a loved one. We don't always look at the structure or the type of pen we use. This December, A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens is 175 years old, a man who wrote many many letters with his own Quill pen.
Dr. Leon Litvak is a Reader in English at Queen's University Belfast. His primary research area is the Life and Works of Charles Dickens. Derek Mooney met him in Belfast to learn more about Charles Dickens, the writer, his life and his style of writing.Dr. Litvak also is involved with The Charles Dickens Letter Project.
Derek travelled to Birmingham recently to hear the story of The Pen Museum with Larry Hanks, one of the founding members of the museum.
Set in Birmingham’s Jewellery Quarter, The Pen Museum is unique in the UK. It celebrates the legacy of Birmingham’s 19th-century steel pen trade, where mass production first made mass communication possible. And through exports, made an enormous contribution to global literacy.
In effect, this is where the world learned to write. The museum is based in an 1863 Florentine Renaissance style former pen factory; 1 factory of 129 in Birmingham that once manufactured the majority of the world’s pens.
