Re: dickens
Charles Dickens (cdickens@RMPLC.CO.UK)
Tue, 28 Apr 1998 15:17:25 -0100
My dear Mr Kearns,
My books are fiction. No character in them is ever simply a person whom I
knew. But a writer, of course, has only his own experience to build upon,
and many of my characters are shaped out of people I knew, some characters
from more than one person. The personality, the very appearance, of Lucie
Manette is based upon a young woman I knew. Several of the French
characters are drawn from what I read about the French Revolution, and the
personalities who shaped it. Sydney Carton grew out of my own dreams of
self-sacrifice in the service of a young person I cared for deeply. Let me
ask you, when you are thinking about fiction, to remember that the
connection between the book and the writer's experience is a complicated one.
Faithfully yours,
Charles Dickens
________________________________________________________________________________
> Mr. Dickens
> I just finished reading A Tale of Two Cities. My question to you is, did
the characters in your story come from an actual person that you were
inspired by or were they all just a product of your imagination.
>Thank you for your time.
> Sincerely,
> Robert Kearns
>
>
======================
Charles Dickens
charles_dickens@rmplc.co.uk
Author