The Dickens Project, an academic consortium headquartered at UC Santa Cruz that researches English writer Charles Dickens and his contemporaries, is inviting members of the public to a Victorian-themed gathering that caps off its annual Dickens Universe conference.
The Curiosity Gala will take place Friday, July 25, in the College Nine and John R. Lewis Multipurpose Room from 6:30 to 11 p.m. The 21-and-over event invites community members to dress up in their best Victorian attire for a night of vibrant entertainment, including Victorian dance lessons, casino tables, a raffle, “postprandial potations” – after-dinner drinks – and a live auction. Tickets are $50, with all purchases from the evening’s activities going to support The Dickens Project’s educational programs.
The Dickens Universe is a cultural event that brings together scholars, teachers, students and members of the public for a week of discussion and festive social activity on the UCSC campus — all centered around one or two Victorian novels, with this year’s novel being Dickens’ “The Old Curiosity Shop.”
“Charles Dickens’s concern with social and environmental issues, urban crime, child abuse, poverty, and exploitation, makes him very much a writer for our own time” according to the project’s website. Concerned with these simultaneously historical and modern issues, The Dickens Project is made up of faculty and graduate students from major American and international universities. Founded in 1981 and based at UC Santa Cruz, the consortium now consists of more than 40 colleges and universities from across the U.S and overseas.
The gala schedule:
6:30 p.m.: Doors open.
7-8 p.m.: Live auction – bid on Dickens-related items, including a first edition of “The Old Curiosity Shop.”
8 p.m.: Announcement of the 2026 Dickens Universe novel, with the option to purchase a copy from local bookseller Liz Pollock of the Cook’s Bookcase.
8:15-11 p.m.: Victorian ball and gaming – dance to 19th-century music performed by the Great Expectations Orchestra, with dances led by instructor Annie Laskey.
To purchase tickets, click here; for more information, email mabingha@ucsc.edu.
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