Antique bed, $1250

Andrew Davies’ adaptations of Bleak House and Little Dorrit were enormous successes for the BBC, winning awards and sending the TV tie-in editions of the Charles Dickens novels up the bestseller lists. But one of the pleasures of falling in love with an old story is finding an old edition in an op shop, or finding that you’ve perhaps owned a copy of the book all along or somehow inherited the copy your parents used at university. Then there are all the period details you can incorporate into your own life, such as a crocheted woollen shawl worn crossed over the chest, or a Victorian-era wrought iron bed.