Later life

Dickens separated from his wife in 1858. In Victorian times divorce 
was almost unthinkable, particularly for someone as famous as he 
was. He continued to maintain her in a house for the next twenty 
years until she died. Although they were initially happy together, 
Catherine did not seem to share quite the same boundless energy 
for life which Dickens had. Her job of looking after their ten 
children and the pressure of living with and keeping house for 
a world famous novelist certainly did not help. Catherine’s 
sister Georgina moved in to help her but there were rumours that 
Charles was romantically linked to his sister-in-law. An indication 
of his marital dissatisfaction was when in 1855 he went to meet 
his first love Maria Beadnell. Maria was by this time married as 
well but she seems to have fallen short of Dickens’ romantic 
memory of her.

On the 9th June, 1865 while returning from France to see Ellen 
Ternan, Dickens was involved in the Staplehurst train crash in 
which the first six carriages of the train plunged off of a 
bridge that was being repaired. The only first-class carriage to 
remain on the track was the one Dickens was in. Dickens spent 
some time tending the wounded and dying before rescuers arrived; 
before finally leaving he remembered the unfinished manuscript 
for Our Mutual Friend and he returned to his carriage to retrieve 
it.

Dickens managed to avoid an appearance at the inquiry into the 
crash, as it would have become known that he was travelling that 
day with Ellen Ternan and her mother, which could have caused a 
scandal. Ellen, an actress, had been Dickens’ companion since 
the break-up of his marriage and as he had met her in 1857 she 
was most likely the ultimate reason for that break-up. She 
continued to be his companion, and probably mistress, until his 
death.

Although unharmed he never really recovered from the crash, which 
is most evident in the fact that his normally prolific writing 
shrank to completing Our Mutual Friend and starting the unfinished 
The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Much of his time was taken up with 
public readings from his best-loved novels. The shows were 
incredibly popular and on December 2, 1867 Dickens gave his first 
public reading in the United States at a New York City theatre. 
The effort and passion he put into these readings with individual 
character voices is also thought to have contributed to his death.

Exactly five years to the day after the Staplehurst crash, on 
June 9, 1870, he died. He was buried in the Poets’ Corner of 
Westminster Abbey. The inscription on his tomb reads: “He was a 
sympathiser to the poor, the suffering, and the oppressed; and 
by his death, one of England’s greatest writers is lost to the 
world.”

In the 1980s the historic Eastgate House in Rochester, Kent was 
converted into a Charles Dickens museum, and an annual Dickens 
Festival is held in the city. The house in Portsmouth in which 
Dickens was born has also been made into a museum.

Children

His ten children by Catherine Thompson Hogarth included:

    * Charles Culliford Boz Dickens (6 January 1837 - 1896).
    * Mary Angela Dickens (6 March 1838 - 1896).
    * Kate Macready Dickens (29 October 1839 - 1929).
    * Walter Landor Dickens (8 February 1841 - 1861).
    * Francis Jeffrey Dickens (15 January 1844 - 1886).
    * Alfred D'Orsay Tennyson Dickens (28 October 1845 - 1912).
    * Sydney Smith Haldimand Dickens (18 April 1847 - 1872).
    * Henry Fielding Dickens (15 January 1849 - 1933).
    * Dora Annie Dickens (16 August 1850 - April, 1851).
    * Edward Bulwer Lytton Dickens (13 March 1852 - 1902).