'Dickens World' theme park to open near London

In Dickens World, rat-catchers hunt vermin on London's cobbled streets, pickpockets roam the alleys - and visitors line up for a fun-tastic water ride. A new theme park inspired by the work of 19th-century novelist Charles Dickens aims to transform a 70,000 square foot (6,500 square meter) warehouse near London into a teeming - and family-friendly - corner of Victorian England. Literary purists may balk, but the attraction's backers are confident. "Would Dickens approve? Yes," said Thelma Grove of the Dickens Fellowship, a global association of the writer's fans. "He loved to see people enjoy themselves, and he had a very sharp eye for the latest fad."