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Fan letter written by Charles Dickens goes on show

Bob DaleSouth East
News imageCharles Dickens Museum An unseen curator holds up a letter handwritten by the author Charles Dickens.Charles Dickens Museum
Dickens wrote the letter in 1863

A fan letter from Charles Dickens to a female opera singer has gone on display at his London home.

The 1863 letter was to Pauline Viardot with the author suggesting they meet for dinner, also mentioning a secret trip to Geneva to meet his long-time mistress Ellen Ternan.

It is part of an exhibition at the Charles Dickens Museum exploring the women who influenced his writing.

It tells how Dickens and a banking heiress set up a refuge to save women from becoming sex workers.

News imageCharles Dickens Museum Lucinda Hawkesley, a middle aged woman with light brown hair, wears a blue velvet dress as she stands in the Charles Dickens Museum and smiles as she looks at a Victorian painting of two of her ancestors, Dickens' daughters.Charles Dickens Museum
Dickens' great-great-great granddaughter and biographer Lucinda Hawksley admires the portrait of her relatives Mamie Dickens and Katey Perugini

Dickens wrote to Pauline Viardot: "I am going on a visit to near Geneva tomorrow night, but shall be back in seven days. May I dine with you next Sunday week?"

The museum is in Doughty Street where Dickens lived from 1837 to 1839, having grown up in Chatham, Kent and later buying Gads Hill Place in Higham, where he died in 1870.

The exhibition also features a painting of his eldest daughters Mamie Dickens and Katey Perugini at Gads Hill.

News imageCharles Dickens Museum A female curator with light brown hair and a blue dress holds up a photograph next to a portrait on the wall of the Charles Dickens Museum, to compare the two images.Charles Dickens Museum
Curators at the museum have drawn together pictures of the real women who inspired Dickens' characters

Lucinda Hawksley, Dickens' great-great-great granddaughter, believes Dickens' portrayal of women stands out among Victorian literature, such as in Great Expectations, a novel set in Kent.

"Miss Havisham is a quite extraordinary figure" she said, "it's just so interesting to see this woman who decides 'I'm independently wealthy and I'm going to have a child even though I haven't got married.'

"It's fascinating that a male author came up with the idea of a woman bringing up a beautiful young woman to break men's hearts, to get her revenge on men."

News imageGetty Images Angela Burdett-Coutts, a middle-aged woman wearing a dark dress and pearls, poses leaning on her right hand in a Victorian portrait photograph.Getty Images
The banking heiress Angela Burdett-Coutts funded a refuge for homeless women at Dickens' behest

Angela Burdett-Coutts was heir to the Coutts Bank fortune and the inspiration for Agnes Wickfield, David Copperfield's second wife.

She and Dickens set up Urania Cottage in Shepherds Bush, a shelter for homeless women who were often at risk of becoming sex workers, and museum curator Kirsty Parsons believes this had an influence on his writing.

News imageGetty Images A contemporary black and white portrait of Charles Dickens, an old man with a beard, sitting at a desk in a room full of books in a country house. He is sitting with one hand resting on the arm of his chair and his head propped on his other hand.Getty Images
An illustration from the end of Dickens' life shows him in the study of Gads Hill Place

"Before Urania Cottage you have characters like Nancy who are much more emotional and theatrical" she said, "and towards the end of his writing when you get to Little Dorrit you have examples that are much richer and more complex.

"He's meeting these women, he's understanding their backgrounds and their stories and that's bound to have influenced his writing."

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