How many performances did Dickens give on his reading tour of the

United Kingdom?
On 9 February 1858, Dickens spoke at the hospital's first annual festival dinner at Freemasons'
Hall and later gave a public reading of A Christmas Carol at St. Martin-in-the-Fields church hall.
The events raised enough money to enable the hospital to purchase the neighboring house, No.
48 Great Ormond Street, increasing the bed capacity from 20 to 75. After separating from his
wife in the summer of 1858 Dickens undertook his first series of public readings in London,
which ended on 22 July.

After 10 days rest, he began a grueling and ambitious tour through the English provinces,
Scotland and Ireland, beginning with a performance in Clifton on 2 August and closing in
Brighton, more than three months later, on 13 November. Altogether he read eighty-seven times,
on some days giving both a matine and an evening performance.

Major works, A Tale of Two Cities (1859); and Great Expectations (1861) soon followed and
would prove resounding successes. During this time he was also the publisher and editor of, and
a major contributor to, the journals Household Words (18501859) and All the Year Round
(18581870). In early September 1860, in a field behind Gad's Hill, Dickens made a great
bonfire of almost his entire correspondence - only those letters on business matters were spared.