Re: influences

Charles Dickens (cdickens@RMPLC.CO.UK)
Fri, 2 May 1997 13:27:25 -0100 

My dear Miss Dornheggen,

  You ask me to look very deeply into my soul!  Well,
I forgive you.  I am the last man on earth (or elsewhere)
to impede a young woman in her studies, not excluding
studies designed to bring a blush to the modest cheek of
the Inimitable.
  It is not as I would have it, but the story of painful
experiences I endured during boyhood is now widely known.
As you suggest, my father's imprisonment all but broke
my heart.  My own scarcely less inhibiting incarceration
in Mr Warren's establishment left marks on my soul never
to be erased.  Subtle students of my books have detected
this in such works as "Oliver Twist" and "David Copperfield."
  The books you call my "not-so-lighthearted" ones were
inspired, I like to think it's clear, by my indignation at
the state of my country and its institutions during the
1850's and 1860's, but I believe, my dear Miss Dornheggen,
that you are asking me to confess a more personal inspiration.
  Crises in my private life, to be sure, did affect the way
I wrote from the 1850's onwards.  The sad estrangement, for
instance, between my wife and myself, that led to our separation
in 1858, I do not doubt was mirrored in what I wrote.  But I
believe that, as I became more adept at my art, I learned to
use painful personal experience in more curious, less direct
ways.  Did you not detect, in Dr Manette's story, the influence
of my childhood sorrows, transformed?  He has a shameful past,
in which imprisonment, and manual labout connected with boots
and shoes feature.  And did you not detect something else?
His friends felt he had been buried alive, that he was called
back to life by his release.  When I wrote "A Tale of Two
Cities" I had been trapped for many years in an unhappy marriage,
from which I was just emerging.  These are matters you should
think about.
  You ask me how I knew about the French Revolution.  I knew about
the past as most people do, from the reading of history books,
in this case principally Mr Carlyle's admirable book on the
French Revolution.


Faithfully yours,



Charles Dickens
________________________________________________________________________________
>Dear Mr. Dickens,
>      I am a senior in high school and I am writing a research paper on how
>your writings were influenced by major events in your life.  For example, I
>know how devasting it was for you to have your father imprisoned, and you
>shared an adaptation of those experiences in David Copperfield.  I was
>curious how your later works, the "not-so-lighthearted" ones were inspired.
> We have currently just finshed reading A Tale of Two Cities in class, and I
>also am curious about how you gained the knowledge of France and it's
>conditions before and during the revolution, since the book was written after
>the fact.
>     Thank you.
>      Sincerely,
>       Alison Dornheggen
>
>

======================
Charles Dickens
charles_dickens@rmplc.co.uk
Author