How Charles Dickens ended up being buried in Westminster Abbey

Charles Dickens didn’t actually want to be buried in Westminster Abbey.

The author of Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities and many other English-language classics had hoped for a quiet burial near his country home.

But instead, Dickens wound up in the Poets’ Corner, and new research has uncovered just how much maneuvering and negotiating went into the ostentatious flouting of his final wishes.

Leon Litvack explains it all in great detail in Smithsonian magazine.

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