The Manuscript of Great Expectations: From the Townshend Collection, Wisbech

by Charles Dickens

Overview

The novels of Charles Dickens (1812–70), with their inimitable energy and their comic, tragic and grotesque characters, are still widely read, and reworked for film and television. Dickens himself had the original manuscripts of his works bound and presented them to his friends: that of Great Expectations was given to Chauncy Hare Townshend, with whom Dickens shared an interest in mesmerism and the occult. Townshend bequeathed his library (and collection of paintings and ceramics) to the Wisbech and Fenland Museum in 1868. The manuscript has now been scanned and is published in the Cambridge Library Collection together with reissues of the serialized version of 1860–1 and the first book edition of 1861 (in three volumes). Dickens scholars and enthusiasts will be able to examine the work-in-progress, with all its deletions and revisions, alongside the first two published versions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781108034401
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	12/08/2011
Series:	Cambridge Library Collection - Literary Studies
Pages:	286
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.02(h) x 0.75(d)

About the Author

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) is probably the greatest novelist England has ever produced, the author of such famous books as A Christmas Carol, Hard Times, Great Expectations, David Copperfield, and Oliver Twist. His innate comic genius and shrewd depictions of Victorian life — along with his indelible characters — have made his books beloved by readers the world over. Dickens was born in Landport, Portsea, England and died in Kent after suffering a stroke. The second of eight children of a family continually plagued by debt, the young Dickens came to know hunger, privation, and the horrors of the infamous debtors' prison and the evils of child labor. These unfortunate early life experiences helped shape many of his greatest works.

Date of Birth:

February 7, 1812

Date of Death:

June 18, 1870

Place of Birth:

Portsmouth, England

Place of Death:

Gad's Hill, Kent, England

Education:

Home-schooling; attended Dame School at Chatham briefly and Wellington

Table of Contents

Manuscript of Great Expectations.

Editorial Reviews

"It is a wonderful privilege to be able to pore over … Dickens' greatest and most compelling novel, to see his alterations and working notes, and to get as close as can be possible to following his mind as he wrote."
Claire Tomalin, author of Charles Dickens: A Life

"Manna for true Dickens afficionados and all who love exhibits of original literary manuscripts."
Library Journal

"… a pleasure to look at and certainly provides an authentic impression of the author’s astonishing and truly 'inimitable' creative imagination."
Christa Jansohn, Editionen in der Kritik

From the Publisher

This volume is comprised entirely of a high-resolution photographic reproduction, page by page and to the exact original scale, of Dickens's autograph manuscript of his penultimate completed novel. After finishing a work, Dickens would bind the manuscript and present it to a friend, in this case Chauncey Hare Townshend, who bequeathed it to the Wisbech and Fenland Museum. There is no editorial apparatus, no introduction or annotations, just the almost indecipherable scrawl of the man himself. The cover sadly is not a reproduction of the original boards; instead, it resembles a Sotheby's or Christie's auction catalog. VERDICT This will be manna for true Dickens aficionados and all who love exhibits of original literary manuscripts. (Cambridge University Press has also come out with new reprints of the novel's original published parts, as well as of its first book edition.)

Library Journal