The items were expected to sell for between $100,000 and $160,000, but Christie's auction house told the BBC bidding for them had been "extremely fierce."

Irish collector Tom Higgins was declared the winner in the end, however.

"I'm a big Dickens fan, I always have been," he told the BBC. "It's an important piece of literary history."

Proceeds from the sale of the furniture will go to benefit the Great Ormond Street children's hospital.

The mahogany desk and walnut chair were passed down to the author's great-great-grandson Christopher Charles Dickens and his wife Jeanne-Marie, Countess Wenckheim, donated both items to Great Ormond Street when he died in 1999, the BBC said.

"Charles Dickens was a champion of the poor and needy and an enthusiastic patron of Great Ormond Street Hospital in its early days," she said. "I felt that it was Charles's wish and it is an honor for me to fulfil this wish."