Fodor's Expert Review Charles Dickens Museum

This is one of the few London houses Charles Dickens (1812–70) inhabited that is still standing, and it's the place where he wrote Oliver Twist and Nicholas Nickleby. The five-story Georgian house looks exactly as it would have in Dickens's day, complete with first editions, letters, and a tall clerk's desk (Dickens wrote standing up). Catch the once-a-month fascinating Housemaid's Tour (£15) in which you're taken back in time to 1839 by Dickens's housemaid, who reveals the private lives of the great author and his family; note that it must be booked in advance.