Charles Dickens (1812 to 1870) sits full length in a carved armchair in this carte de visite of the portrait by Herbert Watkins of London, taken in the late 1850s and issued here by Case & Getchell of Boston, circa 1862 to 1864. John G. Case and William H. Getchell were partners in Boston during those years and published the Watkins portrait for American buyers. The albumen print is on a cream mount with gilt line borders.

The novelist wears a dark coat with wide lapels, a waistcoat, and light trousers, legs crossed and right hand resting on the head of a slender cane. His hair is swept out at the sides above a grizzled goatee. A fringed table with a barley twist leg holds a small statuette of a seated figure, and a heavy curtain hangs at left.

Watkins photographed Dickens in the years of his first paid public readings, begun in 1858, and of A Tale of Two Cities (1859). Dickens returned to the United States in November 1867 for a reading tour that opened in Boston.

Inscribed in ink across the lower margin in a period hand, Charles Dickens, and again in pencil on the reverse. Reverse imprint: Case & Getchell, Photographic Artists, 299 1/2 Washington Street, Boston.