By Daily Press staff
Westside resident Harry Stone has agreed to donate one of the world’s largest collections of Charles Dickens literature to the Oviatt Library at CSU Northridge.
A Dickens scholar who has authored or edited nine books on Dickens, and contributed sections to more than a dozen others, the 77-year-old Stone has spent the past 60 years building his personal Dickens collection. The collection includes books from Dickens’ personal library, drawings and illustrations about Dickens’ work, books on Dickens by other authors, handwritten letters and photos from throughout the author’s life. The collection also boasts an array of other items relating to Dickens and his many works.
“This Dickens collection is one of the three or four best in the world,” said Stone, a retired English professor who taught at CSU Northridge from 1960 to 1992. “Cal State Northridge will have a treasure that I hope will be utilized by the world, and one that also will add greatly to the prestige of the university.”
University President Jolene Koester praised Stone for his generosity in donating the vast collection through a bequest in his estate plan.
“These kinds of gifts are so special because we would never have them without the extraordinary generosity of our very dedicated faculty members, such as professor Stone,” Koester said.
Stone began collecting Dickens materials in his late teens and became more active in the early ’50s, when he was doing research for his doctoral degree in English literature and his dissertation on Dickens.
Dickens, a 19th century English author who wrote such classics as “David Copperfield,” “Oliver Twist” and “A Tale of Two Cities,” is considered by many literary critics to be one of the greatest English-language novelists of all time.
A sampling of the “Harry Stone Dickens Collection” is currently on display at the Oviatt Library.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 22, 2003. Read the original PDF.