Dickens’ Daughter’s Memoirs

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20032, 2 September 1939, Page 11

Dickens’ Daughter’s Memoirs

A book recently issued in Lon den quoted one of Charles Dickens’ daughters as saving that he waa "a very wicked man” who, at 46, became the lover of an 18-year-old actress.

The volume, entitled “Dickens and Daughter," v/as written by Miss Gladys Storey, long time friend of the late Mrs. Kate Perugini, one cf the author’s 11 children. Purportedly it is based on tiie daughter’s memories of her father.

"More tragic and far-reaching in its effects was the association of Charles Dickens and Ellen Toman and their resultant son (who died in infancy) than that of Nelson and Lady Hamilon and their daughter,” wrote Miss Storey. She recorded that Mrs. Parugini insisted that “the wljole truth" be toid after her death, saying: “This affair brought out all that was worst—all that was weakest—in him. He did not care a what happened to any of us. Nothing could surpass the misery and unhappiness of our home.”

The book recounts that Dickens met Ellen Ternan through amateur theatricals in 1857 and, keening an early agreement with his wile, told Mrs. Dickens he had fallen in love with another. Mrs. Dickens left the author in 1858 after 22 years oi' married life.

Miss Storey wrote that Dickens impressed on his family that his good name “was their best possession” and an effort was made to establish the separation as “by mutual consent which Dickens brought himself to believe was right.” The wife was given a settlement cl £6OO a year. Dickens also settled a sum on the young actress, who was established in a suburban residence. Miss Ternan, in later years, married a clergyman. Mrs. Perugini. who was quoted as saying ‘:T loved my father better than any man in the world. _ 1 loved him for his faults,” died' in 1929 at the age of 89.