Charles John Huffam Dickens FRSA was an English writer and social critic. The early years of their marriage were apparently quite happy. The great English writer, Charles Dickens dreamed about having a big family and a wife who would keep his house warm. Sounds like a romance novel doesn’t it?
In 1841 the couple traveled to Scotland. He created some of the world's best-known fictional characters and is regarded by many as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era. Dickens was in love with his young wife and she was very proud of her famous husband. However, it really happened to Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine.After the 1842 trip to America, Catherine’s sister Georgina came to live with the couple. Catherine was becoming overwhelmed with the duties of being the wife of a famous man and caring for their children. Georgina stepped in to fill the gaps and eventually ran the Dickens household.While an announcement of this sort seems extreme Dickens was motivated to do so by some of the rumors circulating about the breakup. There was some gossip about an actress and some stories even suggested that Dickens was having an affair with his sister-in-law, Georgina. The second rumor was particularly upsetting because in those times such a relationship would have been viewed as incestuous.In the notice he stated, “Some domestic trouble of mine, of long-standing, on which I will make no further remark than that it claims to be respected, as being of a sacredly private nature, has lately been brought to an arrangement, which involves no anger or ill-will of any kind, and the whole origin, progress, and surrounding circumstances of which have been, throughout, within the knowledge of my children. It is amicably composed, and its details have now to be forgotten by those concerned in it.”The early years of their marriage were apparently quite happy. Dickens was in love with his young wife and she was very proud of her famous husband. In 1841 the couple traveled to Scotland. In 1842 they traveled to America together.Catherine lived for another twenty years after the separation, passing away in 1879. Deprived of both the role of wife and mother, she never seemed to recover from the breakup of her marriage.Dickens’ life with Catherine seemed even more insufferable after meeting Ellen. Dickens wrote to his friend John Forster, “Poor Catherine and I are not made for each other, and there is no help for it. It is not only that she makes me uneasy and unhappy, but that I make her so too—and much more so.”In 1855 his discontent led him to accept an invitation to meet with his former girlfriend, Maria Beadnell. Maria had married and had become Mrs. Henry Winter. However Mrs. Henry Winter did not live up to Dickens’ romantic memories and nothing ever came of the reunion.They met in 1834, became engaged in 1835 and were married in April of 1836. In January of 1837 the first of their ten children was born.Dickens grew unhappy with Catherine and his marriage. He resented the fact that he had so many children to support. (Somehow he saw this as Catherine’s fault. Please enable JavaScript on your browser to best view this site.Despite assurances that things were “amicably composed” Dickens and Catherine were never again on pleasant terms. Catherine was given a house. Their oldest son, Charley, moved in with her. Dickens retained custody of the rest of the children. While the children were not forbidden to visit their mother they were not encouraged to do so.A man orders a bracelet for his mistress. With its new exhibition The Other Dickens, London’s Charles Dickens Museum has given Catherine back her identity. And whosoever repeats one of them after this denial, will lie as wilfully and as foully as it is possible for any false witness to lie, before heaven and earth.