Charles Dickens was a beast to his wife Catherine

In 1835, the Morning Chronicle in London launched an evening edit­ion, edited by music critic George Hogarth. Hogarth invited Charl­es Dickens (1812–70) to contribute, and Dickens soon became a reg­ul­­ar vis­itor to his Fulham house, enjoying the company of Hogarth's three daughters, Georgina, Mary and young Catherine (1815–79). Charles and Catherine quickly married (1836).

At first, the two were happily married and gave birth to 10 child­ren tog­ether. Early on, Dickens called his wife My Dearest Life, and Dearest Darling Pig in letters to her. But this all changed when, after 22 years of marriage, Charles de­cid­ed that he was tired of his multiparous wife who’d lost her good looks and figure, and always smelt of breast-milk. So he began an affair with a slim, 18-year-old act­r­ess, Ellen Ternan (1839–1914).

Charles, Catherine and two of their daughters, c1850. 

The only photo I could find of the two spouses together.
Smithsonian 

Literature Professor John Bowen at York Uni recently un­covered 98 letters that were kept at Houghton Library at Harvard but never an­alysed. These letters revealed the abandoned Catherine, in shocking detail. Some was old news eg Dickens blocked up the door between his and his wife’s bedrooms and falsely claimed that Catherine had not car­ed for the children. Dickens was desperate to get rid of his wife, but it was Prof Bowen’s evidence that finally tipped the histor­ical scales in Catherine’s favour.

The letters were an exchange between Dickens’ novelist-neigh­­bour, Edward Dutton Cook, and his journ­alist friend William Moy Thomas, staff writer on Dickens’ journ­al. The two men explored the Dickens’ marriage & separation via a cor­res­pondence Cook had had with Catherine in the very year she died (1897). Discreet and well connected in the London literary world, Cook was well placed to record Cather­ine’s story which had been otherwise suppressed. Plus Cook clearly knew of Ellen Ternan’s relat­ionship with Dickens, the house he bought for her and her subseq­uent life as the wife of an Oxford man!!

The discovery that Charles Dickens tried to certify his wife in a mental asylum was already known by some. Cather­ine’s aunt wrote that Dick­ens wanted Cath­er­ine’s doc­tor to certify her mental illness, but the doctor “sternly refused, saying he considered Mrs Dickens per­fectly sound in mind”. Prof Bowen believed he had identified that doctor, Dr Thomas Har­rington Tuke, super­intendent of Manor House Asylum in Chiswick from 1849-88. Dr Tuke’s refusal to go along with Charles' plan to falsely commit Cath­erine was brave, leading Dickens to later exact revenge against Tuke’s reputation.

Most accounts of the break-up of Charles Dickens’ mar­r­iage in 1858 had given HIS side of the story. The charge of mental dis­order was a part­icularly frightening one for women in the 1850s. In the same month that Dickens and Catherine separ­at­ed, his close friend and fellow novel­ist Edward Bulwer-Lytton suc­cessfully plot­ted to have his wife Rosina certified in­sane. Only after a wide­spread public outcry was Rosina judged sane and then freed.

  Young Catherine Dickens

Middle aged Charles Dickens

Young Ellen Ternan

Dickens was very famous & very well connected. John Forster was secr­et­ary to the Commissioners of Lunacy, and both he and Dickens were close friend­s with key figures in the trade eg psychiatrist Dr John Conolly. To be accused of mental disorder with Dr John Conolly and John Forster on-side was very threatening. Dr Conolly believed Catherine’s passivity about her husband’s infid­elity was suff­icient to have her certified. He’d already done it for Lord Lytton!

After their separation was finally settled in June 1858, Dickens wrote a letter claiming that it was actually Cather­ine’s idea to move out and that she had “a mental disorder under which she some­times labours.” The letter was published in a newspaper, because Charles thought pub­lic exposure would help control “his side” and would clarify that his ex-wife was an uncontrollable bur­den. And when the charge of mental dis­order was published in the paper, it also gave Cath­er­ine a terrifying glimpse of what Ch­arles might do. But it didn’t always help Charles. Elizabeth Barrett Browning, for example, wrote: “What a dread­ful letter that was! And what a crime for a man to use his genius as a cudgel again­st the woman he promised to protect tenderly with life and heart”.

  

Meantime Catherine Dick­ens moved to Gloucester Cres, where she lived for her last two decades, until her death in Nov 1879. Her allowance was £600 per annum, until it was halved after Dickens died in 1870. Despite having to live a deprived, lonely life, she loved the th­eatre, and enjoyed her children and grand­children. It was und­oub­t­edly far better for Catherine to be free of her scheming husband.

Nelly and Dickens destroyed all their letters before he died in 1870. After the funeral, Catherine's sister Georgina became the chief prot­ector of his legacy and took care to keep his love affair secret. Fortunately Nelly st­ar­t­ed­ a new life after Dickens’ death, marrying a much younger man, George Wharton Rob­inson, and having two child­ren. Definitive evidence of the Dickens love affair didn’t come out until long af­ter Nelly’s death.

Dickens Museum, London

Photo: BBC

So who would have believed Catherine’s version of events? Her al­l­egations ag­ainst her husb­and were cert­ainly true and gave a totally damning account of Dickens’ behaviour. But it was only as Catherine was dying from Jan 1879 on that she felt free enough to tell Cook the truth about Charles. Cook wrote that after Catherine had borne 10 children, Dickens described his wife as “a great fat lady, flor­id with arms thick as the leg of a life Guard’s man and red as a beef sausage.” [I lost my waistline after birthing just two bab­ies]

You may like to read Newfound Letters Reveal Charles Dickens Wanted His Sane Wife, Catherine Dickens, Locked In An Asylum By Marco Margaritoff, 27/2/2019.