[1] He spent much time in his early days with his cousin, Harry Elkins Widener, who was lost in the Titanic disaster in 1912.
[6] Elkins also owned a desk that Dickens used, along with his postal scale and pen tray, his pocket compass, travelling lantern, and a bedside candlestick.
[7] In terms of rarity, the collection contains the Pickwick Papers in parts, of which Dickens inscribed the first fourteen to his young sister-in-law, Mary Hogarth.
[5] He was active in The Book Table Club, a group founded in 1931 by New York antiquarian booksellers.
[8][9] He died on June 5, 1947, at his home, Briar Hill, in Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania, which he had had built by the architect Horace Trumbauer.