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+--- Thread: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase (/thread-31294.html)
The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - Vera - 10-31-2025
Charles Dickens wrote about compassion, justice, and broken hearts, but he broke one of the biggest himself.
When Catherine Hogarth married the young journalist in 1836, Dickens was charming, poor, and full of dreams.
Within a year The Pickwick Papers made him famous, and Catherine began a life that would soon disappear behind his success.
Over 15 years, she gave birth to 10 children. Ten pregnancies in an age without modern medicine. Ten times risking her life. Dickens’s fame exploded, but Catherine’s health crumbled. She battled exhaustion and depression, what we now know as postpartum depression.
By the 1850s, Dickens was a celebrity. He gave readings to crowds of thousands, met queens, and redefined English literature. But at home, he was restless and cruel. He called Catherine “incapable,” “slow,” and even “mentally deficient.” He moved her into a separate bedroom.
Then came Ellen Ternan, a young actress only 18 when Dickens was 45. He became obsessed. Unable to divorce Catherine because Victorian law protected his image, he forced her out of the house instead.
He kept nine of their children and gave Catherine only one. Her own sister Georgina Hogarth took Dickens’s side and stayed in his home to help raise the children, a betrayal that cut Catherine deeply.
To defend his reputation, Dickens published a letter in The Times claiming Catherine was unstable and unfit as a mother. The public believed him. England’s moral voice had spoken, and Catherine was silenced.
For the rest of her life, she lived quietly with her eldest son. Forgotten, humiliated, and erased from the story of the great Charles Dickens.
Before she died, Catherine gave her daughter a bundle of love letters from their early years, proof that once, before fame and ego, Dickens had truly loved her.
She said softly:
Quote:“Give these to the British Museum, that the world may know he loved me once.”
Those letters are there today.
A small act of defiance from the woman the world was told to forget.
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - Vera - 10-31-2025
What a TRAGEDY and BETRAYAL
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - FarmTech - 10-31-2025
This is why I say never idolize anyone. The people you admire may have done horrible things in private. Dickens could have written about women like Catherine to inspire sympathy, but instead he created that pain in real life.
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - SheFarm - 11-01-2025
Imagine raising ten children almost alone while your husband becomes a celebrity and starts calling you lazy. Then he takes your sister and your children away from you. I cannot even imagine that kind of betrayal. Fame really brings out the true character in people.
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - Kiwi - 11-01-2025
What touched me most was that part where she said, “Give these letters to the British Museum, that the world may know he loved me once.” That is such quiet pain. She did not want revenge. She just wanted the truth remembered. So sad oo 😥
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - Derik - 11-01-2025
So this man wrote about injustice and suffering in his novels, yet could not show basic compassion to his own wife. The irony is deep. It reminds me that even great writers can be great hypocrites. Catherine deserved better than being called mentally unfit after everything she went through.
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - CtrlAltDel - 11-01-2025
People should not be regarded as good just because they're good at something
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - Suarus - 11-01-2025
Wow. I honestly never knew Charles Dickens treated his wife like that. We grew up reading his books and thinking he was some moral hero. This just shows how history always paints men differently when they are famous. Catherine went through ten pregnancies and still got blamed for everything. That is pure wickedness disguised as genius.
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - ZeroWaste - 11-01-2025
It is sad how Victorian society believed Dickens without question. A man could destroy his wife’s reputation in one newspaper article, and no one would stand up for her. If Catherine lived in today’s world, her story would have gone viral and people would have defended her.
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - Farmqueen - 11-01-2025
Ten pregnancies in fifteen years. That alone can break the strongest person. No wonder she became withdrawn and tired. In that time, women were expected to smile and keep going, even when their bodies were giving up. Catherine’s story is not just about Dickens. It is about how society treated women in general.
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - Farm-sultan - 11-01-2025
Dickens was a genius writer but a terrible husband. The world needs to stop worshipping people for their talent alone. A person can write beautiful words and still live an ugly life.
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - The Farmer - 11-01-2025
This story really exposes how hard it was for women in those times. Divorce was nearly impossible, and even separation meant losing your children and your status. Dickens used that system to his advantage. He kept his clean image while ruining her completely.
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - EcoFarm - 11-01-2025
The thing that strikes me is how Dickens could write characters like Little Nell or Tiny Tim, full of innocence and suffering, and yet not see the pain of his own wife. It makes me question the sincerity of his empathy. Maybe it was all performance for the public.
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - FarmLady - 11-01-2025
I think the saddest part is that most of their children sided with their father. She must have felt like the whole world turned against her.
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - Techie Farmer - 11-01-2025
I am glad modern historians are now rewriting this story. Dickens’s reputation as a family man needs to be seen in full light. He was a great writer, yes, but a flawed and cruel husband.
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - MamaGreens - 11-01-2025
Those love letters in the British Museum are powerful. They prove that at least for a time, there was real love between them. It also shows how fame, ego, and ambition can destroy something pure. He went from calling her “my dearest” to publicly calling her mad.
RE: The Wife Charles Dickens Tried to Erase - CassavaBoss - 11-01-2025
Catherine’s story should be taught alongside Dickens’s books. Hmm