Dictionary of National Biography, 1901 supplement/Dickens, Charles (1837-1896)
DICKENS, CHARLES (1837–1896), compiler, born at Furnival's Inn, Holborn, on 6 Jan. 1837, was the eldest son of the great novelist by Catharine, eldest daughter of George Hogarth, journalist and musical critic. 'I am delighted with Charles's precocity,' wrote the father in 1841; 'he takes arter his father, he does.' In his boyhood he became a frequent visitor with his father at Gore House, where he made the acquaintance of Louis Napoleon. In 1849, at the charge of his father's friend, (Lady) Burdett Coutts he was moved from King's College to Eton, and in 1853 he went to Leipzig to acquire German. In 1855 he returned to England and obtained a post in Baring's establishment. Banking, however, was little to his taste, and in 1860, as a preparation for the position of an eastern merchant, he visited Hong Kong, Shanghai, and Japan. Soon after his return in 1861 he married Bessie Evans, daughter of a partner in Bradbury & Evans, and set up in business in the city. His lack of business capacity was a source of some anxiety to his father, but in 1869 the younger Charles, who had already contributed to 'Household Words,' became sub-editor of 'All the Year Round,' and on his father's death he became (under a codicil to his will) sole proprietor of that journal, with which he was connected until within two or three years of his death. Subsequently he became chief partner in the printing concern of Dickens & Evans. In all his business enterprises he fell short of success, though while this firm was under his management he launched with considerable success the various dictionary-guides which are known by his name. Charles Dickens's 'Dictionary to London' appeared in 1879, and it was followed by similar dictionaries to the Thames (1880), to Continental Railways (1880), 'Dictionary of Days' (1881), to Paris (1882), to Oxford and to Cambridge (1884). In the compilation of the most useful, 'The Dictionary to London,' he was aided by Richard Halkett Lord. In 1887 he made a tour in the United States, giving readings from his father's books. He was an excellent reader and reciter, and he inherited to the full the gift of the great novelist as an after-dinner orator. On his return to England he accepted a readership in the firm of Macmillan & Co., and he edited for the same firm, during 1892-3, a new edition of his father's novels, commencing with 'Pickwick.' After his father's death in 1870 he had purchased Gad's Hill, but he resided latterly at West Kensington, and died of paralysis at 43 Fairholme Road on 20 June 1896. He was buried in Mortlake cemetery. Three days later his sister, Mary Dickens, died at Sevenoaks. A few months afterwards appeared posthumously, with family portraits, her 'My Father as I recall him,' by 'Mamie' Dickens. Charles Dickens the younger left, with other issue, a son Charles and a daughter, Mary Angela Dickens the novelist.
[Times, 22 and 27 June 1896; Daily News, 22 June 1896; Academy, June 1896; Forster's Life of Charles Dickens; Mary Dickens's My Father as I knew him; Brit. Mus. Cat.]