Abel Magwitch must have first seen the convicts who worked at unloading, and the marshes at Cooling, north-east of Chatham, off which the galley ships lay - scenes which would play a part in the story of his fictional self, Pip, and Pip's benefactor, Magwitch. Abel Magwitch Abel Magwitch is a fictional character from Charles Dickens's 1861 novel, "Great Expectations". Charles Dickens set his story in about 1800, setting his character Abel Magwitch to meet a man called Compeyson at the Epsom Races. Compeyson, Dickens wrote, had been brought up in a boarding school and was an attractive, charming gentleman. Magwitch, at
Letters of Charles Dickens in private hands, most are now in libraries and public institutions. The largest collection is held by the Charles Dickens Museum in London, the second largest by the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the third largest by the Morgan Library & Museum in New York; other extensive collections are held by the British Library, the New York Public Library, the Huntington Library, and the Free Library of Philadelphia. In contrast, few letters to Dickens are known. Dickens often expressed his opposition to the publication of private letters, and was determined to suffer from it himself as little as possible. He