Re: Questions for Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens (cdickens@RMPLC.CO.UK)
Mon, 28 Jul 1997 10:52:14 -0100
My dear Sir,
Thank you for your concern. I am rather better than might be expected,
for one so venerable.
I am glad you have been enjoying "Great Expectations." Magwitch and Miss
Havisham, I must tell you, are creatures of my imagination, as indeed are
all the men, women and children who inhabit my books. Some though, I must
confess, are shaped by touches of real life, by features of relations,
friends, acquaintances - strangers merely glimpsed - who have sat,
unknowingly, for my pencil. For all that, they remain creatures of my
imagination.
Magwitch was shaped from no single individual known to me. Like Mrs
Shelley's monster, he is constructed of parts taken from many individuals.
The idea for Miss Havisham, however, was suggested to me by an unfortunate
creature, deprived of her wits, who frequented the West End of London during
the 1850s. Her sad story was recorded in the "Household Narrative," a
current affairs supplement to my weekly magazine "Household Words." But
Miss Havisham, I like to think, is a being quite distinct from the unhappy
lady who gave me the idea of her.
Faithfully yours,
Charles Dickens
________________________________________________________________________________
>Dear Mr. Dickens,
>
>How are you? I have recently completed the novel Great Expectations. It
was a great novel. I was wondering, since I have also studied your life, if
the convict in this novel was an actual person you met in real life. I was
also wondering if Mrs. Havisham, whom I thought was an extremely interesting
character, was also based on a real person, you knew or saw? If so, how does
the real 'Mrs. Havisham' compare to the one in your novel. Thank you.
>
>
======================
Charles Dickens
charles_dickens@rmplc.co.uk
Author