Introduction

Abstract

Charles Dickens led a controversial private life. After his death Dickens’s sister-in-law, Georgina Hogarth, zealously shielded his privacy from the public gaze. She outlived him by nearly fifty years and became known as ‘guardian of the beloved memory’, but why she devoted her entire life to Dickens is unclear. The introduction raises the questions to be addressed, such as ‘What happened to propel Georgina from a confident, happy young woman to a quasi-religious acolyte?’ and ‘What role did Dickens’s wife Catherine play in the relationship between Dickens and Georgina?’ It introduces themes that appear throughout the book: power imbalances between middle-class women based on marital status, age and position in the domestic set-up; Dickens’s celebrity, female fans and how the women in his family dealt with this; it defines the Victorian phrase ‘men of genius’. Primary and secondary sources used to support and develop the arguments in the book are outlined. Dickens’s sometimes questionable behaviour with women is acknowledged and discussed within its context. Wherever possible, the views and words of women who observed Dickens and Georgina are used.