For an English major and lifelong reader of fiction, an opportunity Susquehanna University gave me earlier this year was a dream assignment. In conjunction with the 205th celebration of novelist Charles Dickens’ birthday, I was asked to write a web story about a donation to the university’s rare book collection that included the 20 original monthly installments of Dickens’ third novel, The Life and Adventures of Nicholas Nickelby (1838-39).

The donation, from a Susquehanna graduate and her husband whose son is now attending the university, also included a first edition of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s The Song of Hiawatha. In addition, the couple lent the university’s library first editions of some sketches written anonymously by Dickens and three first editions of Washington Irving’s stories.

One of the revelations of the story: product placement is nothing new. In one of the Nicholas Nickleby installments, Dickens mentions a woman “…who every morning bathes in Kalydor …” That same moisturizer was also touted in advertisements that accompanied the serialized text.

To view the story, please click here.