From Wiki:
Dickens was forty-five when he met Ellen Ternan and she was eighteen, slightly older than his daughter Katey. Dickens began an affair with Ternan, but the relationship was kept secret from the general public. Ternan was clever and charming, forceful of character, and interested in literature and the theatre. Dickens referred to Ternan as his "magic circle of one". Matters came to a head in 1858 when Catherine Dickens opened a packet delivered by a London jeweller which contained a gold bracelet meant for Ternan with a note written by her husband. The Dickenses separated that May, after 22 years of marriage.
Dickens is thought by many scholars and commentators to have based several of his female characters on Ternan, including Estella in Great Expectations, Bella Wilfer in Our Mutual Friend and Helena Landless in The Mystery of Edwin Drood, and others may have been inspired by her, particularly Lucie Manette in A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens left a legacy of £1,000 to Ternan in his will on his death in 1870 and sufficient income from a trust fund to ensure that she would never have to work again.
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