The Duke of Norfolk let his house be used and appeared as the gardener touching his forelock respectfully to Mrs. Rattery (Anjelica Huston).
James Wilby and Rupert Graves played love rivals in this movie, but in the Merchant Ivory movie, Maurice (1987), they played lovers. And in Clapham Junction (2007), they are strangers to each other and nearly have a sexual encounter.
The passages read aloud by Tony (James Wilby) when he has to read Charles Dickens to Mr. Todd (Sir Alec Guinness) are "Bleak House" and "Hard Times". Later, Mr. Todd also mentions another Dickens book, "Little Dorrit", of which Guinness appeared in a 1987 filmed adaptation. Guinness starred in such Dickens movie adaptations as Scrooge (1970), Oliver Twist (1948), Little Dorrit (1987), and Great Expectations (1946).
According to Rita Kempley of The Washington Post, the "coda to the central story was derived from (Evelyn) Waugh's short story 'The Man Who Loved Dickens', which was adapted for the closing chapters of 'A Handful of Dust'."