Re: Question for Mr. Dickens
Charles Dickens (cdickens@RMPLC.CO.UK)
Tue, 28 Apr 1998 15:17:10 -0100
My dear Miss Miller,
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. I suppose, in imagining Estella, and Pip's
misery, I remembered my own despair at Maria Beadnell. But Estella is very
different from Maria Beadnell - more deliberate, more calculating. Unlike
poor Maria, moreover, she learned the error of her ways. 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.
"NB" in "Great Expectations" means what it means elsewhere: "nota bene,"
which is Latin for "note well."
Faithfully yours,
Charles Dickens
________________________________________________________________________________
>Dear Mr. Dickens,
>
>I am a great fan of yours. I especially like the book Great
>Expectations. Tell me, was Estella the Maria Beadnell of your life?
>Also, what do the initials N.B. mean in the book?
>
>Thanks
>Donna Miller
>
>
======================
Charles Dickens
charles_dickens@rmplc.co.uk
Author