Miss Havisham

Miss Havisham's father was a wealthy brewer and her mother died shortly after she was born. Her father later remarried and had a son, Arthur, with the household cook. Although they grew up together, Miss Havisham's relationship with her half-brother was not harmonious. She inherited most of her father's fortune and fell in love with a man named Compeyson, who conspired with the jealous Arthur to swindle her of her riches. Her cousin, Matthew Pocket, warned her to be careful, but she was too much in love to listen. On the wedding day, while she was dressing, Miss Havisham received a letter from Compeyson and realised he had defrauded her and she had been left at the altar.

Miss Havisham with Estella and Pip (H. M. Brock)

Humiliated and heartbroken, Miss Havisham suffered a mental breakdown and remained alone in her decaying mansion Satis House – never removing her wedding dress, wearing only one shoe, leaving the wedding breakfast and cake uneaten on the table, and allowing only a few people to see her. She even had the clocks in her mansion stopped at twenty minutes to nine: the exact time when she had received Compeyson's letter.

Time passed and Miss Havisham had her lawyer, Mr. Jaggers, adopt a daughter for her.

I had been shut up in these rooms a long time (I don't know how long; you know what time the clocks keep here), when I told him that I wanted a little girl to rear and love, and save from my fate. I had first seen him when I sent for him to lay this place waste for me; having read of him in the newspapers, before I and the world parted. He told me that he would look about him for such an orphan child. One night he brought her here asleep, and I called her Estella.

Repentance and death

Miss Havisham is begging Pip for his forgiveness (F. A. Fraser)

Miss Havisham repents late in the novel when Estella leaves to marry Pip's rival, Bentley Drummle; and she realises that she has caused Pip's heart to be broken in the same manner as her own; rather than achieving any kind of personal revenge, she has only caused more pain. Miss Havisham begs Pip for forgiveness.

Until you spoke to [Estella] the other day, and until I saw in you a looking-glass that showed me what I once felt myself, I did not know what I had done. What have I done! What have I done!

After Pip leaves, Miss Havisham's dress catches on fire from her fireplace. Pip rushes back in and saves her. However, she has suffered severe burns to the front of her torso (she is laid on her back), up to the throat. The last words she speaks in the novel are (in a delirium) to Pip, referencing both Estella and a note she, Miss Havisham, has given him with her signature: "Take the pencil and write under my name, 'I forgive her!'"

A surgeon dresses her burns, and says that they are "far from hopeless". However, despite rallying for a time, she dies a few weeks later, leaving Estella as her chief beneficiary, and a considerable sum to Herbert Pocket's father, as a result of Pip's reference.

Eliza Emily Donnithorne (1821–1886) of Newtown, Sydney, was said to have been jilted by her groom on her wedding day and spent the rest of her life in a darkened house, her rotting wedding cake left as it was on the table, and with her front door kept permanently ajar in case her groom ever returned. She was widely considered at the time to be Dickens' model for Miss Havisham, although this cannot be proven.[1]

In the 1965 Penguin edition, Angus Calder notes at Chapter 8 that "James Payn, a minor novelist, claimed to have given Dickens the idea for Miss Havisham – from a living original of his acquaintance. He declared that Dickens's account was 'not one whit exaggerated'."[2] It is documented Dickens encountered a wealthy recluse called Elizabeth Parker on whom it is widely believed he based the character, whilst staying in Newport, Shropshire, at the aptly named Havisham Court.[3]

Miss Havisham's Fire (1979, revised 2001) is an opera composed by Dominick Argento with a libretto by John Olon-Scrymgeour, based on Dickens' character. The entire story is told in flashback during an inquiry into Miss Havisham's death. The opera gives her first name as "Aurelia".

Miss Havisham is a major character in the comic detective/mystery series of novels featuring Thursday Next by Jasper Fforde. The stories are set in a fantasy/alternate universe milieu, in which characters borrowed from classic literature play a prominent role.

Ronald Frame's 2013 novel, Havisham, is a non-canonical story about Miss Havisham's early life. The story tells how Miss Havisham (given the name of Catherine) is the daughter of a brewer. The story tells of more than just the infamous trauma of being left behind by her fiancé and goes on with her taking charge of her family's business before descending into vengeful madness, adopting Estella, and arranging the meeting of Estella and Pip.

A young version of Miss Havisham is portrayed by Tuppence Middleton in the 2015 BBC TV series Dickensian. The series gives her the first name Amelia and references the period of her life in the months running up to her wedding. Satis House is relocated to London within the same community as other characters from novels by Dickens.

In film adaptations of Great Expectations, Miss Havisham has been played by a number of actors, including:

• Florence Reed (1934)
• Martita Hunt (1946)
• Margaret Leighton (1974)
• Joan Hickson (1981)
• Jean Simmons (who had previously played Estella in 1946 opposite Hunt) (1989)
• Anne Bancroft (1998) (a version which modernised the story to the twentieth century and changed the names of several characters)
• Charlotte Rampling (1999)
• Gillian Anderson (2011, 3-part TV movie adaptation)[4][5][6]
• Helena Bonham Carter (2012) (in this version the character is given the first name "Eleanor" but no one addresses her by it)
• Tuppence Middleton (2015) (in the multiplot TV series Dickensian; in this version the character is given the first name "Amelia" and referenced as such)
• Tabu (2016) (in Fitoor, a Hindi version; as Begum Hazrat)
• Mentioned in 'P.S. I Love You' (2007)
• Mentioned in the sixth episode of the third season of the TV show 'Supernatural' (2005-2020)

Both Sunset Boulevard and What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? were inspired by David Lean's adaptation of Great Expectations, as were, by extension, the characters of Norma Desmond and Baby Jane Hudson, and their homes.[7]

The condition of the "Miss Havisham effect" has been coined by scientists to describe a person who suffers a painful longing for lost love, which can become a physically addictive pleasure by activation of reward and pleasure centres in the brain, which have been identified to regulate addictive behaviour – regions commonly known to be responsible for craving and drug, alcohol and gambling addiction.[8][9][10]