Kate Perugini
Encyclopedia
Victorian era
The Victorian era of British history was the period of Queen Victoria's reign from 20 June 1837 until her death on 22 January 1901. It was a long period of peace, prosperity, refined sensibilities and national self-confidence...
and the daughter of Charles Dickens
Charles Dickens
Charles John Huffam Dickens was an English novelist, generally considered the greatest of the Victorian period. Dickens enjoyed a wider popularity and fame than had any previous author during his lifetime, and he remains popular, having been responsible for some of English literature's most iconic...
.
Biography
"Kate Perugini" is the most commonly used form of her name, from her second husband's surname, but she was baptised Catherine Elizabeth Macready Dickens, and known as Katey from childhood.She was Dickens' youngest surviving daughter, and according to her siblings her father's favourite child; he named her after his friend William Charles Macready
William Charles Macready
-Life:He was born in London, and educated at Rugby.It was his intention to go up to Oxford, but in 1809 the embarrassed affairs of his father, the lessee of several provincial theatres, called him to share the responsibilities of theatrical management. On 7 June 1810 he made a successful first...
. As a girl, she also bore the nickname "Lucifer Box" for her hot temper.
She traveled widely with her family as a child, and performed in her father's elaborate amateur theatrical productions — including the 1857 performance of Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins
William Wilkie Collins was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. He was very popular during the Victorian era and wrote 30 novels, more than 60 short stories, 14 plays, and over 100 non-fiction pieces...
's The Frozen Deep
The Frozen Deep
The Frozen Deep was a play, originally staged as an amateur theatrical, written by Wilkie Collins along with the substantial guidance of Charles Dickens in 1856...
before Queen Victoria
Victoria of the United Kingdom
Victoria was the monarch of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death. From 1 May 1876, she used the additional title of Empress of India....
. Kate Dickens studied at Bedford College, the first institution of higher learning for women in Britain.
Her first husband was the artist and author Charles Allston Collins
Charles Allston Collins
thumb|Convent Thoughts by CollinsCharles Allston Collins was a British painter, writer and illustrator associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early years:...
, younger brother of Wilkie Collins
Wilkie Collins
William Wilkie Collins was an English novelist, playwright, and author of short stories. He was very popular during the Victorian era and wrote 30 novels, more than 60 short stories, 14 plays, and over 100 non-fiction pieces...
; they married in 1860. After his death from cancer in 1873, Kate married another artist, Charles Edward Perugini
Charles Edward Perugini
Charles Edward Perugini , originally Carlo Perugini, was an Italian-born English painter of the Victorian era....
. She became a successful painter of portraits and genre paintings, sometimes collaborating with Perugini. She started exhibiting her works at the Royal Academy
Royal Academy
The Royal Academy of Arts is an art institution based in Burlington House on Piccadilly, London. The Royal Academy of Arts has a unique position in being an independent, privately funded institution led by eminent artists and architects whose purpose is to promote the creation, enjoyment and...
shows in 1877. The Peruginis were active in artistic society, and maintained friendships with J. M. Barrie
J. M. Barrie
Sir James Matthew Barrie, 1st Baronet, OM was a Scottish author and dramatist, best remembered today as the creator of Peter Pan. The child of a family of small-town weavers, he was educated in Scotland. He moved to London, where he developed a career as a novelist and playwright...
and George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw
George Bernard Shaw was an Irish playwright and a co-founder of the London School of Economics. Although his first profitable writing was music and literary criticism, in which capacity he wrote many highly articulate pieces of journalism, his main talent was for drama, and he wrote more than 60...
among other celebrities of their era.
In 1880 Sir John Everett Millais
John Everett Millais
Sir John Everett Millais, 1st Baronet, PRA was an English painter and illustrator and one of the founders of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood.-Early life:...
painted her in one of his "most striking portraits." Millais had previously used her as a model for his painting The Black Brunswicker (1860). Like her first husband, she pursued literary endeavors along with her easel art.
She and Perugini had one child, Leonard Ralph Dickens Perugini; he died on 24 July 1876, at the age of seven months. Kate was the primary source of biographer Gladys Storey for her book Dickens and Daughter, in the process revealing Dickens's affair with the actress Ellen Ternan
Ellen Ternan
Ellen Lawless Ternan , also known as Nelly Ternan or Nelly Robinson, was an English actress who is mainly known as the woman for whom Charles Dickens separated from his wife Catherine.-Life:...
.