Eliza Emily Donnithorne Eliza Emily Donnithorne Eliza Emily Donnithorne (c.1826 – 1886) was an Australian woman best known as a possible inspiration for the character of Miss Havisham in Charles Dickens' 1861 novel "Great Expectations". Eliza Donnithorne was born at the Cape of Good Hope, South Africa, and spent her early childhood in Calcutta where her father, James Donnithorne, worked for the East India Company as master of the mint and later as a judge. Her mother was Sarah Elizabeth Donnithorne, nee Bampton. Sarah Donnithorne and the couple's two older daughters died during a cholera epidemic in the 1830s. In 1838, when Eliza
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