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
Dickens' Women Dickens' Women Dickens' Women is a one person show written by Miriam Margolyes and Sonia Fraser and starring Margolyes. The play includes 23 different characters (male and female) based on or inspired by characters in Charles Dickens' novels. The "Sydney Morning Herald" wrote that the "elegantly crafted production puts the focus on the storyteller" (Dickens), highlighting his "obsession with youthful beauty and his baffling relationships with his sisters-in-law". "The Age" noted that it "combines character sketches, short readings, biographical material and mordant commentary". The show was developed in 1989 for the Edinburgh Festival, and Margolyes has taken it on tour