A Famous Author’s Seedy Relationship With His Sister in Law
Charles Dickens married Catherine Thomson Hogarth, the daughter of a newspaper editor, in 1836 after they had been engaged for a year. In 1837, Catherine’s younger sister, Mary Scott Hogarth, moved into the Dickens household. Her brother in law grew quite fond of her. Just how fond has long been cause for speculation and gossip. Dickens’s behavior after Mary suddenly died at age seventeen of a heart attack or stroke lent credence to allegation of an affair with his wife’s sister. He wrote of her as “a very dear young relative” and described her as “the chief solace” of his labors. The great author secured a lock of Mary’s hair, and wore her ring for the rest of his life.
Things must have gotten awkward in the Dickens household, as the author seemed to cherish his dead sister in law far more than he did his live wife. After Catherine gave him ten children, Dickens fell out of love with her, and fell head over heels in love with a teenager. In 1857, a forty-five-year Dickens began a seedy affair with Ellen Ternan, an eighteen-year-old actress in a play he produced. It lasted for the rest of his life, and was carried out in a house he bought her in the outskirts of London. When his marriage fell apart, Dickens publicly aired his private laundry, and turned his wife’s other sister – with whom he also apparently had an affair – against her.
