The Dickens Manuscript: Why Great Expectations Is in a Wisbech Safe

There are very few places in England where you can stand in front of the original manuscript of a great novel as it was written, in the author's own handwriting, on the pages he held. The Wisbech & Fenland Museum is one of them. The museum holds the original handwritten manuscript of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations (1860-61), one of the most celebrated novels in the English language. It sits in a safe, and is shown to visitors on request. The question of how it got to Wisbech is a pleasingly unlikely story of Victorian friendship and unusual philanthropy.

The Reverend Chauncy Hare Townshend

The key figure in this story is not Dickens but the Reverend Chauncy Hare Townshend (1798-1868), a wealthy clergyman, collector, poet, and amateur scientist who became one of Dickens' closest friends. Townshend was a man of wide and somewhat unusual interests: he was fascinated by mesmerism (the Victorian precursor to hypnosis), collected gems and minerals, wrote poetry, and maintained a substantial correspondence with literary figures of his day.

He and Dickens became friends in the 1840s and maintained a close friendship until Townshend's death in 1868. Dickens dedicated Our Mutual Friend (1865) to Townshend - a significant mark of affection and esteem.

Townshend was a collector of manuscripts, among many other things. At some point he came into possession of the manuscript of Great Expectations. The exact circumstances are not entirely clear from the historical record, but it was almost certainly a gift from Dickens himself, as was common practice between authors and their close friends in the period.

The Bequest of 1868

When the Reverend Townshend died in 1868, his will made a number of bequests to public institutions. Among them was the collection of items he had assembled to the Wisbech Museum Society, including the Great Expectations manuscript. Townshend had connections to Wisbech - the exact nature of those connections is not fully documented - but his decision to leave part of his collection to a provincial museum in a Fenland market town rather than to a national institution was characteristic of a certain kind of Victorian philanthropy that valued local institutions and local pride.

The museum accepted the bequest and has held the manuscript ever since. It was not at that time widely understood what an extraordinary object had arrived in Wisbech. The full significance of Victorian literary manuscripts only became generally recognised in the twentieth century, as auction records and scholarly interest drove up both the monetary and the cultural value of such items.

The Manuscript Itself

Dickens wrote Great Expectations in weekly instalments for his own magazine, All the Year Round, between December 1860 and August 1861. The novel was written quickly, under the pressure of serial publication - each instalment had to be ready for the press on schedule. Dickens wrote in a clear, rapid hand, with extensive corrections and revisions visible throughout. The manuscript shows the working of his mind as he composed: passages crossed out, words altered, whole sentences rewritten as he refined the narrative.

For any reader of the novel, seeing the manuscript in Dickens' own hand is a striking experience. The pages on which Pip first encounters Magwitch in the graveyard, or Miss Havisham decays in her wedding dress, or Estella is revealed as Magwitch's daughter - all of these exist in the form that Dickens first wrote them, corrected them, and sent them to the printer.

The Museum

The Wisbech & Fenland Museum, founded in 1835 and housed in its purpose-built Victorian building in Museum Square since 1847, is one of the oldest purpose-built provincial museums in England. Its collections - described on the museum's collections pages - span natural history, archaeology, social history, and fine art, in addition to the Dickens manuscript.

The museum has the feel of a genuine Victorian institution: the cases, the arrangement, and the atmosphere all reflect its origins in the nineteenth century. It is a remarkable place on its own terms, and the Dickens manuscript is its most celebrated item but far from its only point of interest. Egyptian artefacts, natural history specimens, local archaeology, and materials relating to Wisbech's history all form part of the collection.

Entry is free. The museum opens Wednesday to Saturday, 10am to 4pm (last admission 3:45pm). The manuscript is held in a safe and is shown to visitors - ask at the desk.