BY FRANK RUBINO
Corresponent

Talk about signing your life away. Cedric Dickens has probably autographed enough copies of David Copperfield, Great Expectations and Oliver Twist during his 82 years to fill a couple of libraries.

So when the great-grandson of the immortal British novelist Charles Dickens visited St. Vincent's Home for Children in Tacony May 6, he assumed a familiar position: seated at a table, pen in hand.

And razor wit at the ready.

"What does your husband call you on a good day?" he asked a startled Rosemary Cammarota while recording a personalized message inside yet another hardback.

"Hon," she answered, laughing, and Dickens segued into a yarn relating to his initial encounter with his wife of 50 years.

"I was riding my bicycle back to my ship," he recalled of his days as a British sailor, "when I looked back over my shoulder and saw this lovely thing driving a truck. And she picked me up."

And so it went. Like his great-grandfather, Cedric Dickens has a way with the English language. Unlike the legendary novelist, however, he prefers to work off-the-cuff, using a vast supply of charm to engage is audience.

Nattily dressed in a blue jacket and maroon tie, he chatted and signed, flirting a bit and generally delighting a small crowd of St. Vincent's staff and media types. He bounced as easily from one topic to another like a beach ball in a crowded swimming pool.

When asked for his wife's reaction upon learning of his great-grandfather's identity, he touched on the sometimes burdensome chore of lugging the Dickens name through a lifetime.

"It was hell when I was younger," he admitted. "But in 1967, my father died, and I suddenly had to become president of the Dickens Fellowship (a worldwide fraternity of Dickens-devotees). From then on, it's been the greatest thing in my life."

Now retired from a job with IBM, Dickens travels the world, serving as ambassador for his ancestor's legacy. He visits "Pickwick Clubs" like the one he founded in Philadelphia, promoting the "spirit of Dickens" and raising money for organizations that help kids, like St Vincent's.

But this was a day for talking, and Cedric Dickens can talk.

"My favorite place is home," the Somerset, England resident said, "but Philadelphia is the nicest place after home."

He said he first visited the city in 1957, when he was with IBM, helping to develop the first computes.

"But I've been away from computers for 20 years now," he added. "I don't understand them any more."

His favorite spot in the city is, obviously, the Dickens statue in Clark Park in West Philadelphia. He mentioned that it is the world's only statue of Charles Dickens.

He penned another message, noting, "I always feel I'm spoiling a book when I write in it." He's probably "spoiled" all of the Dickens books at least once. He has definitely read them all.

"There's good and bad in all of them, mostly good," he related. "He wrote about love and hate, jealousy...just think of the name "Miss Haversham." Have-a-sham. She was a fake."

Charles Dickens' stories are about colorful characters, and everyday people, he said, which is why today's readers are as easily pulled into the tales as were their counterparts of a century ago. And all the Dickens characters are on life's stage each day, if only one looks for them.

"With Dickens, you can walk around the corner, and certainly in a city like Philadelphia, encounter all of these characters," said Cedric.

He was asked a question he's heard before.

"My favorite book is The Pickwick Papers," he responded. "It was his first book..." Dickens glanced at a reporter's small tape recorder. "He was a journalist, a very good journalist. You must remember that in those days, everything was shorthand. He was known for transcribing political speeches and getting them absolutely accurate.

"He then began writing short stories about London and Londoners. He had a brilliant eye for things. One of my favorites is when he discovered a boot and show shop on one of the streets, and he looks at the boots and shoes and populates them with people he thinks should be wearing them. It's a brilliant little sketch," he said.

But what about The Pickwick Papers?

"Oh yes," he backtracked. "It came out in monthly parts, so there was the art of suspense. They had very, very poor wrappers, but nevertheless, it's the first paperback. And much more important, it made him famous overnight."

If not for that novel, he added, Charles Dickens would probably have become an actor.

"And if he'd been an actor, I probably wouldn't have been born, so that alone is enough to make The Pickwick Papers my favorite."

The group he had been entertaining for a half-hour seemed to silently concur. The world is a bit more enchanting with Cedric Dickens in it.

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