“SLANDER MUCK-HEAP”

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 455, 10 September 1928, Page 13

“SLANDER MUCK-HEAP”

ATTACKER OF DICKENS ASSAILED AUTHOR'S SON INDIGNANT (United P.A.—By Telegraph Copyright ) < A nmCt aiian ana A'.Z Press Assoctaitonj LONDON. Friday. Mr. Frank Johnson, a member of the council of the Dickens Fellowship, says the keynote of the offending book about Dickens in an attempt to construe the facts in the worst possible way by raking over a muckheap of old slanders. I “A typical instance of the methods of the author (Mr. Carl Roberts! is his statement that Dickens clandestinely met his old love Maria Beadnell, the original Dora in David Copperfleld. The truth is that Mrs. Dickens arranged the meeting. Dickens was so disgusted at her attempted coquetry that he caricatured her as Flora Finching in “Little Doritt.” So far as the trouble between Dickens and his wife was concerned, Sir Henry Dickens was only holding back the letters about it because he does not want the subject raked up. When they are eventually published, it will be seen that the whole thing is quite innocent. Sir Henry Dickens, commenting, expresses indignation at the attacks on his father’s character, but desires to say no more at present. He will reply fully in a few days. While he is com pelled regretfully to give further I publicity to Mr. Roberts’s book. Sir Henry says it is better to stamp out the allegations now and vindicate his father’s memory, as did Viscount Gladstone.