Mary Dickens
Encyclopedia
Mary 'Mamie' Angela Dickens (6 March 1838 – 23 July 1896) was the oldest daughter of English
novelist
Charles Dickens
and his wife Catherine
. She wrote a book of reminiscences about her father, and, with her aunt Georgina Hogarth
, edited the first collection of his letters.
and was named after Mary Hogarth, who had died in 1837 and who was the sister of her mother, Catherine Dickens
. Her godfather
was John Forster, her father's friend and later biographer
. Mary was nicknamed 'Mild Glo'ster' by her father. She never married, although it is believed she received a proposal of marriage, which she refused because her father disapproved of the suitor. As a result she suffered a prolonged bout of depression. She appeared in a number of amateur plays directed by her father, including Wilkie Collins
's The Lighthouse in which Charles Dickens also acted along with Collins
, Augustus Egg
, Mark Lemon
and Georgina Hogarth
. The production ran for four nights at Tavistock House
, Dickens's home, from 16 June 1855, followed by a single performance on 10 July at Campden House, Kensington
.
In January 1857 she appeared in The Frozen Deep
, again written by Collins and performed at Tavistock House before the Duke of Devonshire
, Lord Lansdowne
, Lord Houghton
, Angela Burdett-Coutts
and Edward Bulwer-Lytton
.
Dickens was visited at Gads Hill Place
in 1857 by Danish
author and poet Hans Christian Andersen
, who was invited for two weeks but who stayed for five. Andersen described Mamie as resembling her mother. Author Peter Ackroyd
described her as being "...amiable, somewhat sentimental, but high-spirited and with a love for what might be called the life of London society. She seems to have attached herself to her father with an almost blind affection; certainly, she never married and, of all the children, she was the one closest to him for the rest of his life."
After her parents separated in 1858 Mary Dickens did not see her mother again until after her father's death in 1870. Because Mamie and Katey
decided to stay with their father rather than with their mother they experienced a certain amount of social coldness. A relative of their mother wrote, "... they, poor girls, have also been flattered as being taken notice of as the daughters of a popular author. He, too, is a caressing father and indulgent in trifles, and they in their ignorance of the world, look no further nor are aware of the injury he does them." When Dickens decided to burn all his letters in 1860 in the field behind Gads Hill Place it was Mamie and two of her brothers who carried them out of the house in basketfuls. These included correspondence from Alfred Tennyson
, Thomas Carlyle
, Thackeray
, Wilkie Collins
and George Eliot
. Mamie asked her father to keep some of them, but he refused, burning everything.
Mary became the official hostess at Gads Hill Place
in Kent
, Dickens's country home, staying with her father for the rest of his life. Her portrait was painted by John Everett Millais
.
and her aunt, Georgina Hogarth
, they editing two volumes of Dickens's letters together, which was published in 1880. Later she lived alone in the country. Mary Dickens went on to write My Father as I Recall Him (1886).
She died in 1896 at Farnham Royal
, Buckinghamshire
and is buried beside her sister Kate Perugini
in Sevenoaks
. She was buried on the same day as her oldest brother Charles Dickens, Jr
.
English people
The English are a nation and ethnic group native to England, who speak English. The English identity is of early mediaeval origin, when they were known in Old English as the Anglecynn. England is now a country of the United Kingdom, and the majority of English people in England are British Citizens...
novelist
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
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...
and his wife Catherine
Catherine Dickens
Catherine 'Kate' Thomson Dickens was the wife of English novelist Charles Dickens, with whom he fathered 10 children.-Marriage:...
. She wrote a book of reminiscences about her father, and, with her aunt Georgina Hogarth
Georgina Hogarth
Georgina Hogarth was the sister-in-law, housekeeper and adviser of English novelist Charles Dickens and the editor of two volumes of his collected letters after his death.-Biography:...
, edited the first collection of his letters.
Biography
'Mamie' Dickens was born at the family home in Doughty Street in LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
and was named after Mary Hogarth, who had died in 1837 and who was the sister of her mother, Catherine Dickens
Catherine Dickens
Catherine 'Kate' Thomson Dickens was the wife of English novelist Charles Dickens, with whom he fathered 10 children.-Marriage:...
. Her godfather
Godparent
A godparent, in many denominations of Christianity, is someone who sponsors a child's baptism. A male godparent is a godfather, and a female godparent is a godmother...
was John Forster, her father's friend and later biographer
Biography
A biography is a detailed description or account of someone's life. More than a list of basic facts , biography also portrays the subject's experience of those events...
. Mary was nicknamed 'Mild Glo'ster' by her father. She never married, although it is believed she received a proposal of marriage, which she refused because her father disapproved of the suitor. As a result she suffered a prolonged bout of depression. She appeared in a number of amateur plays directed by her father, including 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 Lighthouse in which Charles Dickens also acted along with 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...
, Augustus Egg
Augustus Egg
Augustus Leopold Egg 2 May 1816 in London, England – 26 March 1863) was a Victorian artist best known for his modern triptych Past and Present , which depicts the breakup of a middle-class Victorian family.-Biography:...
, Mark Lemon
Mark Lemon
Mark Lemon was founding editor of both Punch and The Field.-Biography:Lemon was born in London on the 30 November 1809. He was the son of Martin Lemon, a hop merchant, and Alice Collis. His parents married on 26 December 1808 at St Mary, Marylebone, London...
and Georgina Hogarth
Georgina Hogarth
Georgina Hogarth was the sister-in-law, housekeeper and adviser of English novelist Charles Dickens and the editor of two volumes of his collected letters after his death.-Biography:...
. The production ran for four nights at Tavistock House
Tavistock House
Tavistock House was the London home of the noted British author Charles Dickens and his family from 1851 to 1860. At Tavistock House Dickens wrote Bleak House, Hard Times, Little Dorrit and A Tale of Two Cities. He also put on amateur theatricals there which are described in John Forster's Life of...
, Dickens's home, from 16 June 1855, followed by a single performance on 10 July at Campden House, Kensington
Kensington
Kensington is a district of west and central London, England within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. An affluent and densely-populated area, its commercial heart is Kensington High Street, and it contains the well-known museum district of South Kensington.To the north, Kensington is...
.
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...
, again written by Collins and performed at Tavistock House before the Duke of Devonshire
William Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire
William George Spencer Cavendish, 6th Duke of Devonshire KG, PC , styled Marquess of Hartington until 1811, was a British peer, courtier and Whig politician...
, Lord Lansdowne
Henry Petty-FitzMaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne
Henry Petty-Fitzmaurice, 3rd Marquess of Lansdowne KG, PC, FRS , known as Lord Henry Petty from 1784 to 1809 and then as The Earl of Kerry to 1818, was a British statesman...
, Lord Houghton
Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton
Richard Monckton Milnes, 1st Baron Houghton FRS was an English poet, patron of literature and politician.-Background and education:...
, Angela Burdett-Coutts
Angela Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts
Angela Georgina Burdett-Coutts, 1st Baroness Burdett-Coutts , born Angela Georgina Burdett, was a nineteenth-century philanthropist, the daughter of Sir Francis Burdett, 5th Baronet and the former Sophia Coutts, daughter of banker Thomas Coutts...
and Edward Bulwer-Lytton
Edward Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton
Edward George Earle Lytton Bulwer-Lytton, 1st Baron Lytton PC , was an English politician, poet, playwright, and novelist. He was immensely popular with the reading public and wrote a stream of bestselling dime-novels which earned him a considerable fortune...
.
Dickens was visited at Gads Hill Place
Gads Hill Place
Gads Hill Place in Higham, Kent, sometimes spelt Gadshill Place and Gad's Hill Place, was the country home of Charles Dickens, the most successful British author of the Victorian era....
in 1857 by Danish
Denmark
Denmark is a Scandinavian country in Northern Europe. The countries of Denmark and Greenland, as well as the Faroe Islands, constitute the Kingdom of Denmark . It is the southernmost of the Nordic countries, southwest of Sweden and south of Norway, and bordered to the south by Germany. Denmark...
author and poet Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen
Hans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...
, who was invited for two weeks but who stayed for five. Andersen described Mamie as resembling her mother. Author Peter Ackroyd
Peter Ackroyd
Peter Ackroyd CBE is an English biographer, novelist and critic with a particular interest in the history and culture of London. For his novels about English history and culture and his biographies of, among others, Charles Dickens, T. S. Eliot and Sir Thomas More he won the Somerset Maugham Award...
described her as being "...amiable, somewhat sentimental, but high-spirited and with a love for what might be called the life of London society. She seems to have attached herself to her father with an almost blind affection; certainly, she never married and, of all the children, she was the one closest to him for the rest of his life."
After her parents separated in 1858 Mary Dickens did not see her mother again until after her father's death in 1870. Because Mamie and Katey
Kate Perugini
Kate Perugini was an English painter of the Victorian era and the daughter of Charles Dickens.-Biography:...
decided to stay with their father rather than with their mother they experienced a certain amount of social coldness. A relative of their mother wrote, "... they, poor girls, have also been flattered as being taken notice of as the daughters of a popular author. He, too, is a caressing father and indulgent in trifles, and they in their ignorance of the world, look no further nor are aware of the injury he does them." When Dickens decided to burn all his letters in 1860 in the field behind Gads Hill Place it was Mamie and two of her brothers who carried them out of the house in basketfuls. These included correspondence from Alfred Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson
Alfred Tennyson, 1st Baron Tennyson, FRS was Poet Laureate of the United Kingdom during much of Queen Victoria's reign and remains one of the most popular poets in the English language....
, Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle
Thomas Carlyle was a Scottish satirical writer, essayist, historian and teacher during the Victorian era.He called economics "the dismal science", wrote articles for the Edinburgh Encyclopedia, and became a controversial social commentator.Coming from a strict Calvinist family, Carlyle was...
, Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray
William Makepeace Thackeray was an English novelist of the 19th century. He was famous for his satirical works, particularly Vanity Fair, a panoramic portrait of English society.-Biography:...
, 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...
and George Eliot
George Eliot
Mary Anne Evans , better known by her pen name George Eliot, was an English novelist, journalist and translator, and one of the leading writers of the Victorian era...
. Mamie asked her father to keep some of them, but he refused, burning everything.
Mary became the official hostess at Gads Hill Place
Gads Hill Place
Gads Hill Place in Higham, Kent, sometimes spelt Gadshill Place and Gad's Hill Place, was the country home of Charles Dickens, the most successful British author of the Victorian era....
in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, Dickens's country home, staying with her father for the rest of his life. Her portrait was painted by 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:...
.
Later years
After her father's death she lived with her brother Henry DickensHenry Fielding Dickens
Sir Henry Fielding Dickens, KC was the eighth of ten children born to British author Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. The most successful of all of Dickens's children, he was a barrister, a KC and Common Serjeant of London, a senior legal office which he held for over 15 years.-Early...
and her aunt, Georgina Hogarth
Georgina Hogarth
Georgina Hogarth was the sister-in-law, housekeeper and adviser of English novelist Charles Dickens and the editor of two volumes of his collected letters after his death.-Biography:...
, they editing two volumes of Dickens's letters together, which was published in 1880. Later she lived alone in the country. Mary Dickens went on to write My Father as I Recall Him (1886).
She died in 1896 at Farnham Royal
Farnham Royal
Farnham Royal is a village and civil parish within the South Bucks district of Buckinghamshire, England. It is located in the south of the county, around 22 miles west of Charing Cross, Central London....
, Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire
Buckinghamshire is a ceremonial and non-metropolitan home county in South East England. The county town is Aylesbury, the largest town in the ceremonial county is Milton Keynes and largest town in the non-metropolitan county is High Wycombe....
and is buried beside her sister Kate Perugini
Kate Perugini
Kate Perugini was an English painter of the Victorian era and the daughter of Charles Dickens.-Biography:...
in Sevenoaks
Sevenoaks
Sevenoaks is a commuter town situated on the London fringe of west Kent, England, some 20 miles south-east of Charing Cross, on one of the principal commuter rail lines from the capital...
. She was buried on the same day as her oldest brother Charles Dickens, Jr
Charles Dickens, Jr
Charles Dickens, Jr, born Charles Culliford Boz Dickens , was the first child of the novelist Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. A failed businessman, he became the editor of his father's magazine All the Year Round, and a successful writer of dictionaries...
.
Publications
- 'The Charles Dickens Birthday Book' Published by Chapman & Hall, London. Illustrated by Kate PeruginiKate PeruginiKate Perugini was an English painter of the Victorian era and the daughter of Charles Dickens.-Biography:...
(1882) - 'The Letters of Charles Dickens' Edited by his sister-in-law and his eldest daughter 3 vols. Published by Bernhard Tauchnitz, Leipzig (1880)
- 'Her Inheritance', in All the Year RoundAll the Year RoundAll the Year Round was a Victorian periodical, being a British weekly literary magazine founded and owned by Charles Dickens, published between 1859 and 1895 throughout the United Kingdom. Edited by Dickens, it was the direct successor to his previous publication Household Words, abandoned due to...
, third series, Vol. 1, Nos. 24 & 25, 1889. This was not credited on publication, but the later 'A Valiant Ignorance' shows her as author of this. - 'Margery', in All the Year Round, third series, Vol. 2, Nos. 33-35, 1889
- 'Kitty's Victim', in All the Year Round, third series, Vol. 2, Nos. 51 & 52, 1889. This was not credited on publication, but the later 'A Valiant Ignorance' shows her as author of this.
- 'A Social Success', in All the Year Round, Christmas Number, 1889
- 'A Mist of Error', All the Year Round, Extra Summer Number, 1890
- 'Cross Currents', a novel serialized in All the Year Round, third series, Vol. 5 & 6, 1891
- 'An Outstanding Debt', in All the Year Round, Christmas Number, 1891
- 'Out of the Fashion', in All the Year Round, Extra Summer Number, 1892
- 'Taken on Trust', co-authored with Margaret Moule, in All the Year Round, Christmas Number, 1892
- 'A Valiant Ignorance', a novel serialized in All the Year RoundAll the Year RoundAll the Year Round was a Victorian periodical, being a British weekly literary magazine founded and owned by Charles Dickens, published between 1859 and 1895 throughout the United Kingdom. Edited by Dickens, it was the direct successor to his previous publication Household Words, abandoned due to...
, third series, volume 9 & 10, 1893 - 'Miss Keturah', in All the Year Round, Summer Holiday Number, 1893
- 'The Last Witness', in All the Year Round, Extra Christmas Number, 1893; co-authored with Margaret Moule
- 'Mere cypher', New York & London, Macmillan, 1893
- 'Some Women's Ways', New York, R. F. Fenn, c1896
- 'My Father As I Recall Him' Cassell & Co, London (1896)
- 'The Love That Was', Chicago & New York, Rand McNally, 1897
External links
- Photographs of Mary Angela Dickens at the National Portrait Gallery (London)
- Full text of 'My Father As I Recall Him' by Mamie Dickens Published by Dutton & Co. 1897
- 'Christmas With Dickens' By Mamie Dickens
- Mary "Mamie" Dickens on Find A Grave
- http://query.nytimes.com/mem/archive-free/pdf?_r=1&res=9F0CE7D9113BE033A25754C1A9659C94659FD7CFArticle by Mamie Dickens in The New York TimesThe New York TimesThe New York Times is an American daily newspaper founded and continuously published in New York City since 1851. The New York Times has won 106 Pulitzer Prizes, the most of any news organization...
March 17 1884]