- In Philadelphia Miriam Margolyes finds a city obsessed with Charles Dickens. It still has the "solitary prison" he wrote about, a Dickens Society, a Dickens Drinking Club, his pet raven stuffed and mounted in the local library - and the only life-size statue of Dickens in the world.
- At the start of the episode, Margolyes comments that Philadelphia is "Dickens Mad."
In West Philadelphia's Clark Park, where the only statue of Dickens in the world at the time of filming. Margolyes explains that Dickens had requested in his will that there be no monuments or memorials erected. He wanted to be remembered by his works. But a statue by Francis Edwin Elwell was created in the 1890s and it ended up in the park. Margolyes comments that the statue is life-sized, but it is actually larger than life-size. There is an accompanying statue of Little Nell that is taller than Margolyes.
Margolyes attends a meeting of the Philadelphia branch of the Dickens Fellowship and visits a department store where a half sized walk-through exhibit of A Christmas Carol is open every holiday season. In about fifteen or so tableaux, dozens of animated figures tell the story with great charm and attention to detail.
Also in the store is the famous Wanamaker Organ. The organist plays some of the music from the Boz Ball that Michael Emyrs gave to Margolyes in New York. The Wanamaker Organ is said to be the world's largest musical instrument.
Margolyes visits two historical items in Philadelphia that Dickens did not mention: the Liberty Bell and a draft of the United States Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson's own handwriting.
She also sees what Dickens wrote about in American Notes, starting with the straight streets and the recently restored Fairmount Water Works. Herb Moskovitz, editor of a Dickens newsletter, explains how William Penn, living through the Great Fire of London of 1666, ordered buildings to be built out of bricks and stones, and this helped Philadelphia escape the great fires that burned other contemporary cities to the ground, and explains Philadelphia today has blocks and blocks of 18th century and early 19th buildings.
At Pennsylvania Hospital, the oldest hospital in the US, Margolyes sees the painting of Our Savior Healing the Sick, by Benjamin West that Dickens comments on, and goes up to the original Operating Theater on the top floor where operations could only be done from about 11 am to about 3 pm, since they depended on natural light. She comments on how Dickens had to have a rectal fistula operated on without anesthetics.
In the Rare Book Department of the Philadelphia Free Library, librarian William Lang shows Margolyes Dickens's pet raven, Grip, stuffed and mounted, and a small gravestone that memorialized Dick, the best of birds, that was once at Gad's Hill. The Rare Book Department has a huge collection of Dickensiana.
Margolyes attends a meeting of the Philadelphia Pickwick Club, a dining and drinking men's society and is inducted in as the only woman member.
The show finishes with a visit to Eastern State Penitentiary, a prison that Dickens talked about at length in American Notes.
Dickens wrote how the prisoners had to wear a hood when arriving that prevented them seeing the path from the front gate to their cell, so they had no concept of where in the building they were. Margolyes attempts to do the same but can't go far before she gets too uncomfortable to go on.
The prisoners were kept in solitary confinement, with only a bible to read. Naturally many went insane. Dickens was quick to see the inhumanity of this supposedly "humane" treatment.
Dickens was allowed to talk with a few of the inmates.
The prison was closed in 1971 and is now a tourist attraction. It is in a deteriorating state, and is only maintained well enough for safety issues. They say they are keeping it in a state of "suspended ruin."
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