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
Charles Dickens bibliography and by 1997 Volume 9 had been published. Charles Dickens bibliography The bibliography of Charles Dickens (1812–70) includes more than a dozen major novels, a large number of short stories (including Christmas-themed stories and ghost stories), several plays, several non-fiction books, and individual essays and articles. Dickens's novels were serialized initially in weekly or monthly magazines, then reprinted in standard book formats. A chronological list of Dickens' major works Editing and publication of Dickens's letters started in 1949 when publisher Rupert Hart-Davis persuaded Humphry House of Wadham College, Oxford, to edit a complete edition of the letters. House died suddenly