Gerald Charles Dickens (actor) his own British and American tours, Gerald Dickens performs extracts from "The Pickwick Papers", "David Copperfield", "Oliver Twist", "Great Expectations", "Nicholas Nickleby" and "A Christmas Carol" among others, in the latter creating 26 characters in a performance described by "The New York Times" as "a once in a lifetime brush with literary history." Dickens has recorded unabridged audiobooks of "The Pickwick Papers" and "Nicholas Nickleby". In December 2011 he appeared on the BBC's "Songs of Praise". A keen golfer, he wrote and performs the two-act play "Top Hole!", based on four golfing stories by P. G. Wodehouse. In 2015 at
Great Expectations and remunerative reading tours. His domestic life had, however, disintegrated in the late 1850s and he had separated from his wife, Catherine Dickens, and was having a secret affair with the much younger Ellen Ternan. The introduction of the 1984 Penguin English Library edition suggests that the reluctance with which Ellen Ternan became his mistress is reflected in the icy teasing of Estella in "Great Expectations". In his "Book of Memoranda", begun in 1855, Dickens wrote names for possible characters: Magwitch, Provis, Clarriker, Compey, Pumblechook, Orlick, Gargery, Wopsle, Skiffins, some of which became familiar in "Great Expectations". There is also