Charles Dickens visited the Isle of Wight more than once and is believed to have derived inspiration for characters in 2 of his greatest novels – David Copperfield and Great Expectations – here.
Dickens was born just the other side of the Solent in Portsmouth in 1812. His father worked for the Royal Navy, and he would have glimpsed Ryde across Spithead in his formative years.
His first visit to the Island came in 1838 when he was recently married. His wife Catherine had recently given birth to their first child. He stayed at the Grove’s Needles Hotel at Alum Bay for the first week of his vacation. The second week was spent at the Ventnor Hotel (now the Royal Hotel).
He first came when on the cusp of fame and fortune – Oliver Twist had just been published.
Dickens’ second spell on the Isle of Wight was in 1849 when he stayed at Ventnor with his growing family of 8 children. It was here that he began his masterpiece David Copperfield.
The now famous novelist – who was besieged by admirers including a young Queen Victoria – needed seclusion in order to write.
The family stayed for 3 months at Winterbourne House in Bonchurch, somewhere Dickens described as:
“the prettiest place I ever saw in my life, either at home or abroad.”
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Dickens further claimed that the view was:
“only to be equalled on the Genoese shore of the Mediterranean… best of all the place is cold rather than hot in the summertime.”
Then 37-year-old Dickens kept to a strict regimen while staying at Winterbourne. He would begin writing at 14:00. However, before picking up his quill, he would swim in the sea off Bonchurch, then shower under an ice-cold waterfall tumbling down the Undercliff behind the present day Waterfall Cottage.
After showering, he would stride up the steep slopes of St Boniface Down. On his return, he would be ready to write.
When he had penned his latest chapters, Dickens would spend time socialising with friends and family on the beach playing rounders. Such was his fame, it was said that the entire village would turn out to spectate the game.
Opposite Winterbourne was the home of the Swinburne’s – East Dene. Dickens would often dine there in the company of the then 12-year-old poet Algernon.
It was during his sojourn in South Wight that Dickens found inspiration for Mr Dick – Betsy Trotwood’s eccentric lodger and relative in David Copperfield. Dick was to have been called Mr Roberts, but Dickens changed his name to ‘Dick’ in honour of his walking companion Charles Dick, with whom he had formed a friendship on trips up St Boniface Down.
Dickens is thought to have found inspiration for the name ‘Miss Havisham’ – the jilted embittered spinster in Great Expectations – from a Miss Catherine Haviland who constructed a coach house and stable now known as Haviland Cottage in Ventnor in the mid-19th century.
The character of Miss Havisham is supposedly based on Margaret Dick – Charles Dick’s sister – who was jilted on her wedding day in 1860. Dickens’ daughters Mamie and Katy had been holidaying at Bonchurch at the time and are believed to have conveyed the news to their father.
This was the year in which Great Expectations was written – the final version was published in 1861.
In Great Expectations, Miss Havisham was said to have worn her increasingly ragged wedding dress for the remainder of her life after being stood up at the altar, living in a crumbling mansion with the clocks stopped and the remains of the wedding cake forever uneaten.
Miss Dick suffered a similar sad fate. Ventnorians have claimed that after the wedding-that-never-was, she retreated to her attic where she was passed food through a trap door and that she never again left the house during daylight hours.
Ian Dickens – great-great-grandson of Charles and president of the Dickens fellowship – has said of the tragic life of Margaret and its possible inspiration for the Dickensian character of Miss Havisham:
“It’s just too much of a coincidence not to have been an influence on Dickens as he was writing. Any artist takes elements of the stories he hears and the characteristics of people he meets and builds those combinations together to make a fictional character.”
Margaret Dick died in 1878 and was buried in Ventnor cemetery.
Are you familiar with the sad tale of Margaret Dick or know of Charles Dickens’ visits to the Island? Let us know in the comments…
What rubbish, I can assure you that there is no evidence that dickens ever stayed at the Winterborne. True, he may certainly have visited but he was staying at the east Dean, the home of his friend Swinburn over the road, I lived and worked at the Winterborne for many years and we researched it thoroughly and could not find any proof that he stayed there.
Wouldn’t surprise me, they tell us any old
ballsh*t, bit like the Dinosaur stories.
True or not great story
I don’t think he’d be much inspired these days by a lot of the people living on the island ; )