Great Expectations a reference to a "knowing man", a possible sketch of Bentley Drummle. Another evokes a house full of "Toadies and Humbugs", foreshadowing the visitors to Satis House in chapter 11. Margaret Cardwell discovered the "premonition" of "Great Expectations" from a 25 September 1855 letter from Dickens to W. H. Wills, in which Dickens speaks of recycling an "odd idea" from the Christmas special "A House to Let" and "the pivot round which my next book shall revolve." The "odd idea" concerns an individual who "retires to an old lonely house…resolved to shut out the world and hold no communion with
Gerald Charles Dickens to 1945, when he retired. In 1945 he was appointed Commander of the Legion of Merit (United States) and a Chevalier of the Légion d'honneur (France). Sir Gerald Dickens died of a heart attack in London aged 83 in 1962 and was buried at sea from off Chatham. He was the father of Captain Peter Dickens RN, the grandfather of actor Gerald Charles Dickens and great-grandfather of actor Harry Lloyd. Gerald Charles Dickens Admiral Sir Gerald Louis Charles Dickens (13 October 1879 – 19 November 1962) was a senior Royal Navy officer and the grandson of Victorian novelist Charles Dickens.