No fictional character has been portrayed more often on stage and screen than Sherlock Holmes. Fans flock from all over the world to see the locations where he lived, worked and brought justice to Victorian London. The BBC’s Sherlock series starring Benedict Cumberbatch and Martin Freeman has only increased his popularity.

Charles Dickens was born in 1812 at Portsmouth and was one of the first world superstars both in his own lifetime and ever since. He was recognised not only in Great Britain as a great writer but abroad, particularly France and the United States where he travelled extensively. He emerged as a writer in a stratospheric way in 1836, with Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist.