This week on Tales we enter the vaults to revisit - and re-record - one of the five early episodes still on here that was recorded on my cheap, starter microphone. (We’ll knock the other four off next year in mid-season breaks.) 

With Christmas just around the corner this seems as good a time as any to follow a young Charles Dickens around Canongate Graveyard in Edinburgh Scotland looking for ghosts… And we meet the man who - most likely - influenced one of his most famous characters - John Elwes, The Miser of Marcham Park.

Apologies for the break between parts one and two of The Tichborne Claimant. I’m hoping to get that out in the last week of December. 

Sources this week include: 

Sorry all I never took down any of my sources for this at the time of the original. In revamping the piece though I referred to 

This BBC Article.

This Mercat Tours blog post

This Edinburgh Enquirer article by David Forsyth

This BBC piece on Robert Fergusson

And this piece on Fergusson from Roderick Watson at Scottish Poetry Library

This piece from the Royal College of Physicians on Dr Andrew Duncan

Very rare for me, I referred to Wikipedia for more on Dr Andrew Duncan

This piece on Giusto Fernando Tenducci

And this piece on Tenducci by Aoife Barry in The Journal

And John Elwes: The Miser Who Inspired Dickens by Kaushik Patowary

Support the show on Patreon for $2 US a month and get access to exclusive content, or Try our 7 Day Free Trial. 

Please leave Tales a like and a review wherever you listen. The best way you can support us is to share an episode with a friend - Creative works grow best by word of mouth. I post episodes fortnightly - (give or take… sorry all it’s been a rough year… Back to fortnightly Wednesdays in 2026?).

Tales of History and Imagination is on 

| Facebook | TikTok | Threads | Instagram | YouTube |