(Note: This was posted a bit late, but in my opinion is too interesting a story not to tell.)
June 12, 1858—Charles Dickens, having separated from wife Catherine the month before, posted a front-page “Personal” statement in the journal he edited, Household Words, obliquely commenting on his troubled marriage.
The situation, arising from his affair with a young actress, not only ended his 21-year marriage but also drove a wedge between himself and his children and wrecked a profitable relationship with his publisher.
In the copious Dickens literature, you first receive a hint of something amiss in perhaps his most unusual novel, Hard Times, for These Times (1854).
June 12, 1858—Charles Dickens, having separated from wife Catherine the month before, posted a front-page “Personal” statement in the journal he edited, Household Words, obliquely commenting on his troubled marriage.
The situation, arising from his affair with a young actress, not only ended his 21-year marriage but also drove a wedge between himself and his children and wrecked a profitable relationship with his publisher.
In the copious Dickens literature, you first receive a hint of something amiss in perhaps his most unusual novel, Hard Times, for These Times (1854).
It’s not only the shortest of his books (perhaps necessitated by the limited space he had in his journal), but, in its portrait of the loveless marriage of Louisa Grandgrind to Josiah Bounderby, the novelist’s first major acknowledgement of the difficulties in this institution.
You get the distinct sense that someone who could write so knowledgeably about this was facing all kinds of emotional turmoil himself (sort of the same sense I had when listening to Bruce Springsteen’s Tunnel of Love).
A couple of factors left the author susceptible to an affair:
1) Growing disenchantment with Catherine. After the birth of 10 children (nine surviving to adulthood), Dickens had grown resentful of his wife, as much for presenting him with so many mouths to feed as for the fact that she was not his intellectual equal. That he played an equally—and, really, more significant—role than Catherine in her continual pregnancies never seems to have occurred to him.
A couple of factors left the author susceptible to an affair:
1) Growing disenchantment with Catherine. After the birth of 10 children (nine surviving to adulthood), Dickens had grown resentful of his wife, as much for presenting him with so many mouths to feed as for the fact that she was not his intellectual equal. That he played an equally—and, really, more significant—role than Catherine in her continual pregnancies never seems to have occurred to him.
2) Irrepressible energy. Dickens did more than write many massive novels. He edited a journal, wrote 12 volumes of letters, hiked all around London and the countryside at all hours of the day and night, and, when it came to partying, was a veritable Mr. Fezziwig. Yet all of this portended something darker. "I am afraid he has too much talent for his genius; it is a fearful locomotive to which he is bound and can never be free from it nor set at rest,” wrote Ralph Waldo Emerson to a friend, Annie Fields.
3) A passion for the stage. One outlet for this demonic energy was theater. He loved not only to attend plays, but to participate in them, as producer, director and actor – a kind of forerunner of cinema actor-hyphenates like Orson Welles, Warren Beatty and Woody Allen. Actually, he even one-upped them by helping with carpentry, costumes, playbills—you name it.
It was during one such theatrical venture, an 1857 melodrama written in collaboration with Willkie Collins about the ill-fated John Franklin expedition to the Arctic, The Frozen Deep, that Dickens made the acquaintance of 18-year-old Ellen Ternan, part of a family of thespians (not only her parents but her two sisters were also actors).
The play’s reason for being showed Dickens at his best—it was staged to raise funds for the family of a late friend. The play’s denouement, however, brought out the worst in the novelist: vindictiveness, secrecy and hypocrisy.
Before long, Dickens decided that he had—just had—to have Ternan for his own. To that end, he put her up in one lodging or another all over London.
(Now, for this blog posting, I thought of including a picture of Charles, but who doesn’t, after all these years, know what the guy looks like? Now, his – if you’ll pardon the expression—“Little Nell” is something else entirely. At least one of my readers—and he knows who he is!—has been dying for a British Beauty on this blog. Well, the photo with this post is as close as you’re going to get.)
Catherine stumbled on the affair in the spring of 1858, when a bracelet that Dickens bought for “Nelly” was delivered to their house by mistake. The novelist’s creative explanation for the gesture—that he always bought little gifts for actors in his plays—didn’t cut any ice with her.
Before long, Dickens decided that he had—just had—to have Ternan for his own. To that end, he put her up in one lodging or another all over London.
(Now, for this blog posting, I thought of including a picture of Charles, but who doesn’t, after all these years, know what the guy looks like? Now, his – if you’ll pardon the expression—“Little Nell” is something else entirely. At least one of my readers—and he knows who he is!—has been dying for a British Beauty on this blog. Well, the photo with this post is as close as you’re going to get.)
Catherine stumbled on the affair in the spring of 1858, when a bracelet that Dickens bought for “Nelly” was delivered to their house by mistake. The novelist’s creative explanation for the gesture—that he always bought little gifts for actors in his plays—didn’t cut any ice with her.
In May 1858, Dickens separated from Catherine. It was only the beginning of his shabby mistreatment, for in a letter to a friend he attributed the separation to his realization that she was a bad mother.
Predictably and conveniently, Dickens’ private feelings were leaked to the press, with not a word about his responsibility for the separation.
Inevitably, rumors began to fly. The Victorian homebreaker was at first believed to be Dickens’ dear sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth, who, amazingly enough, not only did not take Catherine’s part but also acted as housekeeper for Dickens and his children (all but one of whom followed him to his home at Gad’s Hill).
Inevitably, rumors began to fly. The Victorian homebreaker was at first believed to be Dickens’ dear sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth, who, amazingly enough, not only did not take Catherine’s part but also acted as housekeeper for Dickens and his children (all but one of whom followed him to his home at Gad’s Hill).
Friends thought they were helping by saying a close relative was not the one who interfered with the couple’s happiness.
Nowadays, to end scurrilous gossip, especially if you’re a Presidential candidate, you put in up on your Website, where you can denounce it and tear it to shred like the mangy lie it is. If you were a Victorian, you had to be a bit more careful.
Thus, on June 12, 1858, Dickens’ Household Words statement let out that that "some domestic trouble of mine, of long-standing," had "lately been brought to an arrangement." But he couldn't stop there -- he was forced to denounce unnamed people who had cast blame on unnamed “innocent persons.”
The “arrangement” meant that Catherine would be provided for throughout the rest of her life, but she would never live with the novelist again. Though they could not turn their back on the force of nature who was their father, there are signs that Dickens’ children were, to one extent or another, dismayed by his conduct during this time.
Kate, whose hot temper and artistic temperament made her the most like Charles, noted years later, “This affair brought out all that was worst--all that was weakest in him. He did not care a damn what happened to any of us."
Dickens hoped that his printers, Bradbury & Evans, would also publish his “Personal” statement in another serial they handled, Punch. But, smelling the makings of a red-hot sexual scandal, the duo wouldn’t touch it.
Anger had led Dickens to the firm in the first place, when he had been disappointed by the handling by his previous printer, Chapman & Hall, of Martin Chuzzlewit and A Christmas Carol. Now, anger turned Dickens away from Bradbury & Evans and back to Chapman & Hall. He stayed with his original publishers through the end of his life.
As part of the break with Bradbury & Evans, Dickens ended Household Words and started a new journal, All the Year Round. This time the bestselling author would be in as much control as he could want, with a 75% stake in the operation. The first issue of the new journal appeared the following April, with the first installment of A Tale of Two Cities as its lead article.
But if you’re like myself, you don’t want the tale to stop you. What happened to the pretty young woman that Dickens took up with, and how did the public take to her?
Well, the second question is easier to answer: The public basically didn’t have a clue what was going on, even though Dickens was the kind of celebrity that people didn’t mind interrupting while he was eating dinner or shaking his hand when they encountered him on the street. Whatever the suspicions of the press, they decided to remain silent.
As for Ellen Ternan: she remained Dickens’ mistress for the rest of his life, but let on to a clerical confidant after the novelist was dead that she found relations with him physically repugnant.
As for Ellen Ternan: she remained Dickens’ mistress for the rest of his life, but let on to a clerical confidant after the novelist was dead that she found relations with him physically repugnant.
The turning point in their relationship might have come eight years after it began, when a train on which the two were traveling had an accident. Dickens managed to extricate Nelly and bring her to safety, but it was all he could do to keep from getting called as an eyewitness to the tragic events.
His vigor and peace of mind were never quite the same after that, and he died five years to the day after the accident.
The more intriguing question is where he died. For years, biographers believed that he had died at home with his family.
The more intriguing question is where he died. For years, biographers believed that he had died at home with his family.
A biographer of Nelly, Claire Tomalin, believed so, too, until some months after her book appeared, when a reader told her that an ancestor – minister at a vicarage just down the road—knew what really happened: Dickens had been felled by his fatal stroke at the home of Nelly, who transported the body immediately to Gad’s Hill so that their relationship would not be discovered.
And it wasn’t, until after her death at age 75, by a son from a post-Dickens marriage.
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