The Hard Times of Mrs. Dickens

Catherine Dickens

This account of the marriage of Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth, written by their great-great-great granddaughter, reminds me of the story of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda Sayre (http://somanyinterestingthings.blogspot.com/2012/11/just-because-zelda-biography.html). The couples are similar in that both spouses are talented but only one follows that talent and is recognized. Both marriages were just as miserable toward their end as they were happy in the beginning. Both women were multi-talented and expected to tamp down that talent in order to provide the emotional and daily support every very gifted artist requires. Both marriages suffered from the stress brought on by the husbands' popularity, and both women were looked on unfavorably by the public in their time and for some time afterward: http://www.bbc.com/culture/story/20160519-the-forgotten-wife-of-charles-dickens