John Forster (biographer)

[1] Forster's great-grandfather had been "a man of some considerable substance", a landowner at Corsenside in Northumberland; his grandfather Christopher (the third son) inherited nothing, so this branch became butchers and cattle-dealers in Newcastle.

Forster's father "married beneath himself" despite his wife being "a gem of a woman"; she was remembered by a nephew as "kind and affectionate", giving her impoverished sister's children cast-off clothing.

The Forsters subsequently lived on Low Friar Street and at 5, Green Court, all "in the centre of old Newcastle... a jumble of houses, works and potteries".

[7] His valuable collection of manuscripts, including original copies of Charles Dickens's novels, together with his books and pictures, was bequeathed to the South Kensington Museum.

This includes The Last Dickens by Matthew Pearl (2009), Wanting by Richard Flanagan (2008), Girl in a Blue Dress by Gaynor Arnold (2008, renamed Michael O'Rourke), Drood by Dan Simmons (2009) and the forensic examination of the genesis of Pickwick Papers, Death and Mr Pickwick by Stephen Jarvis (2014) in which Forster is cast as the major villain of the piece.

The film portrays Forster as Dickens' unofficial business manager and engaged to a Miss Charlotte Wigmore, a fictional character.