Niki de Saint Phalle as styrene, epoxy, and solvent fumes, which may cause health problems if not used carefully. In 1963, she created a series of sculptures protesting stereotypical societal roles for women, as child bearers, devouring mothers, witches, and prostitutes. Some of her early artworks from this "Bride" period depicted ghostly, skeletal brides dressed in white, which have been compared to Miss Havisham, an ethereal character in Charles Dickens' novel "Great Expectations". Over time, these figures became more joyful, whimsical, colorful, and larger in scale. Inspired by a collaborative drawing with American artist Larry Rivers of his wife, her pregnant friend Clarice Price,
Francis Dickens Rudy Wiebe. In recent decades, Francis Dickens has been depicted as a comic figure. In "W.G. Grace's Last Case" (1984), by William Rushton, in a fantastic plot that includes fictional characters like Jekyll and Hyde and Dr. Watson, Francis Dickens encounters Apache Indians and (anachronistically) meets the famed cricketer of the title during the latter's team's 1872 North American tour. Francis Dickens later was the subject of a comic novel by humorist Eric Nicol, "Dickens of the Mounted" (1989). The book is a series of fictional letters, a mock document purporting to be a record of Dickens's correspondence spanning his