Enough Port to float a Cunard liner: Charles Dickens and wine

Enough Port to float a Cunard liner: Charles Dickens and wine

It was probably the scarcely bearable torment of Charles Dickens’ second American reading tour in 1867-8 that did most to hasten his untimely end at 58, two years later. The itinerary would have tested the constitution of a determined youngster, but to a man suffering from inflamed sinuses and bilious attacks, it rapidly turned from a triumphal progress into the road to Calvary. At every stage along the four-month schedule, there were grand dinn…