Tavistock House was the London home of the noted British author Charles Dickens and his family from 1851 to 1860. At Tavistock House Dickens wrote Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit and A Tale of Two Cities. He also put on amateur theatricals there which are described in John Forster's Life of Charles Dickens. Later, it was the home of William and Georgina Weldon, whose lodger was the French composer Charles Gounod, who composed part of his opera Polyeucte at the house.HistoryTavistock House was built by builder and developer James Burton, who probably lived in Tavistock House while he developed the surrounding area. The house is shown on Davies' Map of Marylebone, printed in 1834. From Francis Russell, 5th Duke of Bedford, Burton acquired the leases for two plots of land, one northern and one southern, on the east side of Tavistock Square. It was on the northern plot, and part of the southern plot, that Burton built Tavistock House. Burton sold the lease for Tavistock House to Thomas Murdock in 1805. Murdock lived there for six years before he in turn sold the lease to Benjamin Oakley in 1811. In 1812 Oakley transferred the lease to journalist James Perry, who was the first editor of The European Magazine, and who also edited the Morning Chronicle.