Charles Dickens' Favorite Daughter

October 21, 2013
In this updated edition of the British Katey: the life and Loves of Dickens' Artist Daughter, Hawksley, the several times granddaughter of Dickens, attempts to do justice to the life of his daughter, Katey. At first, Dickens himself takes center stage, while Katey takes a strong supporting role along with the rest of her family. Katey's circle of friends included luminaries of the British artistic and literary world such as John Millais, William Thackery, and George Bernard Shaw. Katey doesn't emerge as the heroine until her marriage to Charles Collins, younger brother of author Wilkie, and even then she spends much of their marriage as his nursemaid rather than his lover. After Collins's untimely death, Katey marries Carlo Perugini and "it is from this time that Kate's career as an artist can truly be counted." Unfortunately for the author, few of Katey's paintings are currently in the public domain, so only four black and white plates of her work appear. Her liveliness, wit, and balancing periods of depression are vividly rendered, but much about her life remains a mystery. B&w photos, illus.

July 1, 2013

Great-great-great-granddaughter of Charles Dickens, Hawksley (Charles Dickens: Dickens' Bicentenary), a travel writer and Dickens lecturer, releases a revised edition of her 2006 biography of Katey Dickens, the first edition of which was only published in the UK. Rarely has a Dickens child been the sole subject of an extensive study, but perhaps it is fitting that "Dickens' favorite daughter" should be highlighted, as she lived quite a full life. From Katey's unconsummated first marriage to Wilkie Collins's brother Charlie (English novelist Collins was a lifelong friend of Dickens) through her second successful marriage, to Italian painter Carlo Perugini, Hawksley paints a colorful portrait of her subject's complex personality. Katey's insights into the lives of her siblings are revealed, as well as those in her social circle, from the Collinses and Thackerays to painters Frederic Leighton and John Everett Millais. As a sometime art historian (Essential Pre-Raphaelites), Hawksley illuminatingly analyzes Katey as a successful but financially struggling female painter. VERDICT Best suited for university libraries, Dickens scholars, feminists, and anyone interested in the lives of late Victorian women.--Lara Jacobs, Brooklyn

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