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
Thomas Bentley Thomas Bentley Thomas Bentley (1884 – 1966) was a British film director. He directed 68 films between 1912 and 1941. He directed three films in the early DeForest Phonofilm sound-on-film process, "The Man in the Street" (1926), "The Antidote" (1927), and "Acci-Dental Treatment" (1928). Bentley was born in London and originally trained as an engineer, but went on to become a vaudeville performer well known for impersonating the characters from the novels of Charles Dickens on stage. His directing career in silent films began in 1910 with his adaptations of a number of Dickens' novels to film. After his retirement