If this manuscript is restored and conserved, museum visitors and Dickens scholars will be able to study the author's own notes and textual alterations and even perhaps deduce their own solution to one of the most intriguing unsolved cases in literary history.

"Movies were more and more about stars and spectacle and visual effects," said Mr. Romano, who was a Dickens scholar and an assistant professor at Columbia University before becoming a television writer.

John Romano, another executive producer and a former Dickens scholar who previously wrote for "Hill Street Blues," explained: "One of the things I wanted to do with 'Michael Hayes' was dust off the Bill of Rights.

The newest (and youngest) member, Mike Morello, 23, is literally a Dickens scholar.

The professor is a Dickens scholar.

He was a respected figure with an ample educational pedigree, the intellectual heft of a Dickens scholar and a born politician's touch at making people feel welcome.

That aside I think it is a real shame that the biography by Michael Slater, who is probably the greatest Dickens scholar we have, was not accorded this attention when it came out two years ago and is virtually ignored now.

Working with a Dickens scholar, Mr. Stewart developed and performed his show in many venues, among them a living room in Los Angeles, a church in northern England, the Old Vic in London and on Broadway.

A reassuring presence was Prof. Al Hutter, a Shakespeare and Dickens scholar at U.C.L.A.