Hieronder heb ik de pagina overgenomen van de museumwebsite waarin de
connectie tussen het huis en Dickens wordt toegelicht.
CHARLES DICKENS AND MISS BETSEY TROTWOOD
When Charles Dickens came to stay in Broadstairsfor the first time, in 1837, he was twenty-
five years old and already a famous author. 'The Pickwick Pepers', the first of his novels to
appear in monthly parts, was nearly completed. He took lodgings at no. 12 High Street where he
worked on the book. He was to return to the town again and again until 1851with a final visit
at the end of the decade. It was in Broadstairs that he found much of the inspiration for one of his
most famous characters, Miss Betsy Trotwood, David Copperfield's aunt.
In what is now The Dickens House Museum there lived a Miss Mary Pearson Strong.
According to the reminiscences of Dicker's son (also Charles), she was a kindly and charming old
lady who fed him tea and cakes. He also remembered that she was firmly convinced of her right to
stop the passage of donkeys in front of her cottage
While he used the donkey incident for the character of Betsy Trotwood, Charles Dickens
described her cottage, with its square gravelled garden full offlowers, and the parlour with its old
fashioned furniture, through the eyes of young David Copperfield. In the novel its location was
moved to Dover; it is thought that this was done it to avoid any embarrassment to Miss Strong.
The house, that was named 'Dickens House' before the end of the 19th century, was bought by
the Tattam family in 1919. Their daufitter Dora devised it to the town, and in 1973 it was
opened, according to the terms of Dora's will, as a museum.
Bron: http://www.dickenshouse.co.uk/trotwoodhtm
Vanaf de boulevard die boven
over de klif loopt was het uitzicht
prachtig. In de verte lag het
landhuis dat Dickens gedurende
zijn zomervakanties huurde en
dat door deze Dickens connectie
een naamsverandering onder
ging van Fort House in Bleak
House. Ook dit is inmiddels tot
een museum verbouwd, maar
eerlijk gezegd vond ik de
beschrijving (zie hieronder) niet spannend genoeg om het met een bezoek te
vereren.
High up on the cliffs at Broadstairs on the coast of Kent, stands Bleak House, a mansion
known far and wide as the seaside residence of the great novelist, Charles Dickens, at the height
of his fame. Here he played with his nine children in the garden. Here he entertained his intimate
friends, men famous in literature and art. This was the house that inspired the title of one of his
greatest works - Bleak House.
