Berners Street a job as a result in 1827. One of the lodgers was a young lawyer called Edward Blackmore, who was impressed by the youngster and employed him as a solicitor’s clerk at Ellis & Blackmore in Grays Inn at the age of 15 (for more than twice the pay of the dreaded blacking factory job). It was in Berners Street that, as a boy, Dickens' saw a wandering woman, upon whom the character Miss Havisham from Great Expectations was clearly based. Dickens described her as "a conceited old creature, cold and formal in manner" who was "dressed entirely in white
Mariana (Dickens novel) novel has been described as a semi-autobiography, for example Dickens was kicked out of Drama School "for not being able to act". Mariana (Dickens novel) Mariana (1940) is the first novel by Monica Dickens. "Mariana" is a coming of age novel, which describes the growth and experience of Mary Shannon, a young English girl in the 1930s as the first hints of war begin to permeate English domestic life. First published by Michael Joseph, it was reprinted by Persephone Books in 1999 and is the second in their collection. The title is a reference to the poem of the same