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

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 Wi...