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Our Mutual Friend
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===Dickens and ''Our Mutual Friend''=== Inspiration for ''Our Mutual Friend'' possibly came from [[Richard Henry Horne]]'s essay "Dust; or Ugliness Redeemed", published in ''Household Words'' in 1850, which contains a number of situations and characters that are found in the novel. These include a dust heap, in which a legacy lies buried,<ref name="Kaplan, Fred1988">{{cite book |last=Kaplan |first=Fred |author-link=Fred Kaplan (biographer) |year=1988 |title=Dickens: A Biography |location=New York |publisher=William Morrow & Company |page=[https://archive.org/details/dickensbiography00kapl/page/467 467] |isbn=978-0-688-04341-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/dickensbiography00kapl/page/467 }}</ref> a man with a wooden leg, who has an acute interest in the dust heap, Silas Wegg, and another character, Jenny Wren, with "poor withered legs".<ref>{{cite book |last=Ackroyd |first=Peter |title=Dickens |location=New York |publisher=Harper-Collins |page=[https://archive.org/details/dickens00ackr_1/page/939 939] |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-06-016602-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/dickens00ackr_1/page/939 }}</ref> In 1862 Dickens jotted down in his notebook: "LEADING INCIDENT FOR A STORY. A man—young and eccentric?—feigns to be dead, and is dead to all intents and purposes, and ... for years retains that singular view of life and character".<ref name="Kaplan, Fred1988" /> Additionally, Dickens's longtime friend [[John Forster (biographer)|John Forster]] was a possible model for the wealthy, pompous John Podsnap.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ackroyd |first=Peter |title=Dickens |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/dickens00ackr_1/page/944 944] |publisher=Harper-Collins |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-06-016602-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/dickens00ackr_1/page/944 }}</ref> ''Our Mutual Friend'' was published in nineteen monthly numbers, in the fashion of many earlier Dickens novels, for the first time since ''Little Dorrit'' (1855–57).<ref>{{cite book |last=Kaplan |first=Fred |year=1988 |title=Dickens: A Biography |location=New York |publisher=William Morrow & Company |page=[https://archive.org/details/dickensbiography00kapl/page/468 468] |isbn=978-0-688-04341-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/dickensbiography00kapl/page/468 }}</ref> ''A Tale of Two Cities'' (1859) and ''Great Expectations'' (1860–61) had been serialised in Dickens's weekly magazine ''All the Year Round.'' Dickens remarked to [[Wilkie Collins]] that he was "quite dazed" at the prospect of putting out twenty monthly parts after more recent weekly serials.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ackroyd |first=Peter |title=Dickens |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/dickens00ackr_1/page/941 941] |publisher=Harper-Collins |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-06-016602-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/dickens00ackr_1/page/941 }}</ref> ''Our Mutual Friend'' was the first of Dickens's novels not illustrated by Hablot Browne, with whom he had collaborated since ''The Pickwick Papers'' (1836–37). Dickens chose instead the younger Marcus Stone and, uncharacteristically, left much of the illustrating process to Stone's discretion.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ackroyd |first=Peter |title=Dickens |location=New York |publisher=Harper-Collins |pages=[https://archive.org/details/dickens00ackr_1/page/941 941–943] |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-06-016602-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/dickens00ackr_1/page/941 }}</ref> After suggesting only a few slight alterations for the cover, for instance, Dickens wrote to Stone: "All perfectly right. Alterations quite satisfactory. Everything very pretty".<ref>Storey, Graham, ed. (1998), ''The Letters of Charles Dickens, Volume Ten: 1862–1864'', Oxford: Clarendon Press, 365</ref> Stone's encounter with a taxidermist named Willis provided the basis for Dickens's Mr Venus, after Dickens had indicated he was searching for an uncommon occupation ("it must be something very striking and unusual") for the novel.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ackroyd |first=Peter |title=Dickens |location=New York |publisher=Harper-Collins |page=[https://archive.org/details/dickens00ackr_1/page/943 943] |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-06-016602-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/dickens00ackr_1/page/943 }}</ref> [[Image:Staplehurst rail crash.jpg|420px|thumb|Staplehurst rail accident]] Dickens, who was aware that it was now taking him longer than before to write, made sure he had built up a safety net of five serial numbers before the first went to publication for May 1864. He was at work on number sixteen when he was involved in the traumatic [[Staplehurst rail crash]]. Following the crash, and while tending to the injured among the "dead and dying," Dickens went back to the carriage to rescue the manuscript from his overcoat.<ref>{{cite book |last=Ackroyd |first=Peter |title=Dickens |location=New York |page=[https://archive.org/details/dickens00ackr_1/page/961 961] |publisher=Harper-Collins |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-06-016602-1 |url=https://archive.org/details/dickens00ackr_1/page/961 }}</ref> With the resulting stress, from which Dickens would never fully recover, he came up two and a half pages short for the sixteenth serial, published in August 1865.<ref>{{cite book |last=Kaplan |first=Fred |year=1988 |title=Dickens: A Biography |location=New York |publisher=William Morrow & Company |page=[https://archive.org/details/dickensbiography00kapl/page/471 471] |isbn=978-0-688-04341-4 |url=https://archive.org/details/dickensbiography00kapl/page/471 }}</ref> Dickens acknowledged this close brush with death, which nearly cut short the composition of ''Our Mutual Friend'', in the novel's postscript: <blockquote> On Friday the Ninth of June in the present year, Mr and Mrs Boffin (in their manuscript dress of receiving Mr and Mrs Lammle at breakfast) were on the South-Eastern Railway with me, in a terribly destructive accident. When I had done what I could to help others, I climbed back into my carriage—nearly turned over a viaduct, and caught aslant upon the turn—to extricate the worthy couple. They were much soiled, but otherwise unhurt. [...] I remember with devout thankfulness that I can never be much nearer parting company with my readers for ever than I was then, until there shall be written against my life, the two words with which I have this day closed this book:—THE END. </blockquote> Dickens was travelling with [[Ellen Ternan]] and [[Frances Eleanor Jarman|her mother]]. <!-- Dickens was careful not to give evidence at the inquest as his affair with Ternan was not public knowledge.<ref name=pottier>{{cite book|last1=Pottier|first1=Celeste Louise|title=Bodies as Texts, Texts as Bodies|date=2008|isbn=054971264X|page=123|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Y6hsfVdcDToC&pg=PA123|access-date=18 January 2015}}</ref> -->
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