CDV full-length standing portrait of English author Charles Dickens by Gurney & Son, Fifth Avenue, New York, shows the novelist in a relaxed but confident pose during his celebrated 1867–68 American reading tour. Dickens stands facing the camera in a dark frock coat with distinctive lapel trim, a watch chain looping across his waistcoat, and holds what appears to be a folded document or paper in his left hand at his side. His beard and mustache are neatly groomed and his expression is direct.

The composition is full-length with a plain studio backdrop, capturing Dickens at his most publicly visible during a tour that drew enormous crowds across American cities. A penciled inscription on the reverse reads "Dickens" in a period hand, accompanied by dealer notations "LOGHCX 2/14/05 Eb."

Charles Dickens (1812–1870) gave more than seventy readings during his final American tour, drawing sellout audiences in cities including New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. His novels, among them David Copperfield, Bleak House, Dombey and Son, and The Pickwick Papers, defined the social conscience of Victorian fiction.