The Invisible Woman
Page 1
CLAIRE TOMALIN
THE
INVISIBLE
WOMAN
Claire Tomalin was educated at Cambridge University and has served as literary editor of The New Statesman and the London Sunday Times. She is the author of The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, Shelley and His World and Katherine Mansfield: A Secret Life.
Also by Claire Tomalin
THE LIFE AND DEATH OF MARY WOLLSTONECRAFT
SHELLEY AND HIS WORLD
KATHERINE MANSFIELD: A SECRET LIFE
FIRST VINTAGE BOOKS EDITION, DECEMBER 1992
Copyright © 1990, 1991 by Claire Tomalin
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Inc., New York.
Originally published in Great Britain by Penguin Books, Ltd., in 1990. First published in the United States by Alfred A. Knopf, Inc., New York, in somewhat different form in 1991.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Tomalin, Claire.
The invisible woman: the story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens / Claire Tomalin.—1st Vintage Books ed.
p. cm.
Originally published: New York: Knopf, 1991.
eISBN: 978-0-307-82239-0
1. Dickens, Charles, 1812–1870—Relations with women.
2. Novelists, English—19th century—Biography. 3. Ternan, Ellen Lawless, 1839–1914—Relations with men.
4. Mistresses—Great Britain—Biography. 5. Actors—Great Britain—Biography. I. Title.
[PR4582.T66 1992]
823′.8—dc20
[B] 91-50736
v3.1_r1
For Katharine M. Longley
Was talking with Mrs Warner, who gave her opinion with some bitterness that theatrical people – players – were not lower in character, etc., than literary people. But I fear this is only the result of a mind, never very elevated, undergoing a process of vulgarization. – William Charles Macready, the actor, reporting a conversation with his leading lady in his diary for 11 February 1847
‘I suppose that most gentlemen become acquainted with some people that they would not wish all their friends to know that they knew. They go about so much more than we do, and meet people of all sorts.’ – Emily Dunstable to Lily Dale in The Last Chronicle of Barset by Anthony Trollope, 1867
No conceivable process by which the girl might grow into the middle-aged woman ever seems to have presented itself to Dickens’s imagination. His heroines are … perennially young and pure. The fear of ageing, an ever-present horror in a society that demanded girlish women, never seems to trouble their heads at all. Furthermore, though spinsters are acknowledged to be laughing stocks, the Dickensian heroine must display no eagerness to get hold of a husband. Ideally she should be perfectly unaware of the facts of life, and will imagine that the man who is forcing his attentions upon her is really applying to become her brother or father. – John Carey, The Violent Effigy: A Study of Dickens’s Imagination, 1973
‘Marry this woman! Marry at eighteen an actress of thirty – bah, bah! I would as soon he went into the kitchen and married the cook.’ – Major Pendennis in The History of Pendennis by William Makepeace Thackeray, 1850
Contents
Cover
About the Author
Other Books by This Author
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
PART ONE
1 ‘N’
2 ‘Agreeable and beautiful talents’
3 Family Saga (1790–1845)
4 Little Orphans (1845–1855)
5 Gaslight Fairies (1856–1857)
PART TWO
6 The Amateur: Dickens in 1857
7 Manchester, Doncaster and Scandal (1857–1858)
8 Mornington Crescent (1858–1862)
9 Vanishing into Space (1862–1865)
10 Fanny and Maria Get Married (1863–1866)
11 The Year of the Diary (1867)
12 ‘This life is half made up of partings’ (1868–1870)
PART THREE
13 Another Life Begins (1870–1876)
14 The Schoolmaster’s Wife and the Foreign Correspondent: Margate, Rome, Africa
15 Nelly Tells
16 Southsea
17 Geoffrey
18 Myths and Morals
A Postscript: The Death of Dickens
Notes
Bibliography
List of Illustrations
6.1 Nelly’s mother, Fanny Jarman, as a young actress (courtesy of Miss Katharine M. Longley)
6.2 Nelly’s father, Thomas Ternan (courtesy of Miss Katharine M. Longley)
6.3 Nelly’s mother acting Gertrude to Macready’s Hamlet (Raymond Mander & Joe Mitchenson Collection)
6.4 Dora Jordan, as Cora in Sheridan’s Pizarro (painting by Samuel de Wilde in the Raymond Mander & Joe Mitchenson Collection)
6.5 Cruikshank’s 1841 drawing of a ‘Theatrical Fun-Dinner’ (from the Comic Almanac)
6.6 Maria dressed as a fairy (courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum)
6.7 A scene from Atalanta (Illustrated London News)
6.8 Street scene after the theatre in the Haymarket (from Henry Mayhew’s London Labour and the London Poor)
6.9 Nelly in 1858 (courtesy of Mrs L. Fields)
6.10 Fanny, Nelly and Maria Ternan (courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum)
10.1 Dickens as painted by Frith (courtesy of the Dickens House)
10.2 Tavistock House, Bloomsbury (courtesy of the Dickens House)
10.3 Dickens with his acting group (reproduced from Francesco Berger’s Reminiscences, Impressions and Anecdotes, courtesy of the British Library)
10.4 A modern view of Park Cottage, Islington (courtesy of Geoff Howard)
10.5 The Free Trade Hall, Manchester (Manchester Public Libraries)
10.6 Nelly Ternan (courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum)
10.7 Catherine Dickens (courtesy of the Dickens House)
10.8 Georgina Hogarth (courtesy of the Dickens House)
10.9 Katey Dickens (courtesy of the Dickens House)
10.10 Maria Ternan (courtesy of the Dickens House)
10.11 Charles Dickens … clad in spruce frockcoat (courtesy of the Dickens House)
10.12 Painting of the Fallen Woman by Augustus Egg (The Tate Gallery, London)
10.13 A print showing Dickens ministering to a woman passenger after a train accident in June 1865 (from The Penny Illustrated Paper, Saturday, 24 June 1865, courtesy of the Dickens House)
10.14 Villa Ricorboli (courtesy of Robert Cecil Esquire)
10.15 The main street of Slough (Slough Library, photograph by Alan Greeley)
10.16 Dickens giving his Sikes and Nancy reading (courtesy of the Dickens House)
10.17 Dickens in his last year (courtesy of the Dickens House)
14.1 Mrs Ternan with her three daughters in the early 1870s (courtesy of Miss Katharine M. Longley)
14.2 Fanny and her husband, Thomas Adolphus Trollope (courtesy of Robert Cecil Esquire)
14.3 Maria (courtesy of Miss Katharine M. Longley)
14.4 Maria’s drawing of her mother (courtesy of the Board of Trustees of the Victoria & Albert Museum)
14.5 Nelly in the mid-1860s (courtesy of Miss Katharine M. Longley)
14.6 Nelly in the 1870s (courtesy of the Dickens House)
14.7 A drawing of Nelly done in Italy (courtesy of Miss Katharine M. Longley)
14.8 Nelly in fancy dress or acting costume, late 1870s (courtesy of the Dickens Hous
e)
14.9 Nelly and the Revd George Wharton Robinson after their wedding in 1876 (courtesy of the Dickens House)
14.10 Nelly with flowers in her hair (courtesy of Miss Katharine M. Longley)
14.11 Nelly with her schoolmaster husband in Margate (courtesy of Mrs L. Fields)
14.12 Nelly with husband and son Geoffrey (courtesy of Mrs L. Fields)
14.13 Nelly with her family (courtesy of Mrs L. Fields)
14.14 A Roman cartoon showing Maria as a working journalist (courtesy of Mrs L. Fields)
14.15 Geoffrey as Bacchus (courtesy of Mrs L. Fields)
14.16 Geoffrey as a clown (courtesy of Mrs L. Fields)
14.17 The Revd Benham (courtesy of the Dickens House)
14.18 Georgina in old age (courtesy of the Dickens House)
14.19 Geoffrey as a young army officer (courtesy of Mrs L. Fields)
14.20 Nelly and Fanny in Southsea (courtesy of Mrs L. Fields)
TEXT ILLUSTRATIONS
3.1 Playbill (from collection in the Public Library of Newcastle upon Tyne)
4.1 Playbill (from the Minster Library, York)
4.2 Playbill (from collection in the Public Library of Newcastle upon Tyne)
7.1 Playbill (from Manchester City Council, Department of Libraries & Theatres)
10.1 Letter from Dickens to Thomas Adolphus Trollope, congratulating him on his marriage to Fanny Ternan (by permission of Robert Cecil Esquire and Miss Katharine M. Longley)
11.1 Pages from Dickens’s 1867 diary (by permission of the Berg Collection, New York Public Library)
13.1 Letter from John Forster to Frederic Ouvry, about ‘Provident sums’ for Nelly (from the Dickens box at Messrs Farrer)
16.1 Page of Nelly’s attempt at play-writing (from the Morris L. Parrish Collection of Victorian Novelists, Princeton University Library)
Acknowledgements
My first and greatest debt is to Miss Katharine M. Longley who, in an act of rare generosity, placed her own research and unpublished typescript at my disposal. She gave me her time, answered my questions, shared her discoveries and pointed me in the direction of both specialist libraries and private archives and information. She has also allowed me to use photographs in her collection, many of which have never been published before. All this she did without seeking to influence my views in any way. I bow before her scholarship, and my gratitude for both her friendship and her forbearance is partially expressed in the dedication to this book.
My next debt is to other Dickens scholars: Dr Graham Storey, who among many kindnesses allowed me access to the as yet unpublished letters of Dickens, in preparation for later volumes of the Pilgrim Edition; Michael Slater, not only for his book Dickens and Women and his articles in The Dickensian but also for several enjoyable conversations; and George Curry, who kindly gave me a copy of his Charles Dickens and Annie Fields. Dr David Parker, the curator of the Dickens House Museum in Doughty Street, has been constantly supportive in offering advice, providing information and allowing me to use the many excellent resources of the museum. Miss Eileen Power, at one time Assistant Curator, also gave me useful advice at an early stage; her successors Angela Brooker and most recently Andrew Bean have also been helpful.
I am profoundly grateful to the pioneering work of Ada Nisbet, Emeritus Professor of Victorian Studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, whose Dickens and Ellen Ternan, published in 1952, made the fruits of years of patient research available in a compact and carefully argued form.
My next large debt is to Robert Cecil Esq., who most kindly allowed me to see his collection of family letters and to transcribe from them; he also made available pictures in his possession.
My thanks go to many libraries and their curators: to the British Library; to the London Library, its excellent Librarian Douglas Matthews and his always helpful staff; to Alexander Wainwright of Princeton University Library, who went to much trouble to assist me with the microfilms and photocopies I needed, as well as other kindnesses; to the late Lola Szladits, Curator of the Berg Collection, her successor Francis O. Mattson and the staff there; to the Pierpont Morgan Library; to Nancy Romero of University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; to Ann Caiger, Manuscripts Librarian at University of California, LA; and to the Department of Archives in Arras, France. I also appreciate help received from the staff of the Minster Library, York; the reference section of Newcastle upon Tyne Public Library; Penny Ward of Margate Library; the reference section of Slough Public Library; the Library of the London School of Economics; the Guildhall Library; the John Harvard Library in the Borough High Street; the Public Record Office; and Martin Tupper of Islington Reference Library. I am grateful to the staff of the Theatre Museum, now in Covent Garden; to the Colindale Newspaper Library; to the Imperial War Museum Library; and to the Ministry of Defence Archivists.
I much appreciate being allowed to examine the Dickens box at Messrs. Farrer & Company, and the help extended to me there by Mr R. Robertson. My thanks also go to the Keeper of Archives, The Queen’s College, Oxford.
To Mrs Lillah Fields I am indebted for hospitality, information and the loan of several precious and personal family possessions.
To Mrs Ayres also I am under an obligation for sparing time and lending me papers and photographs in her possession.
I am grateful to Ron Woollacott, local historian and author of A Historical Tour of Nunhead, for his generosity with time and information on more than one occasion.
Mr and Mrs Harold Yexley most kindly took in a strange inquirer, entertained me, gave me a careful historical tour of Park Cottage and offered interesting information about the surrounding area. Mr and Mrs David Barker likewise invited me into their house in Rochester Villas and found the deeds for me to inspect.
In Boulogne, I am grateful for advice and help to Madame Janine Watrin and Monsieur André Beaudel, and for hospitality to Monsieur et Madame Viala and Madame Houillez, the present owner of the Chalet Dickens at Condette.
In Southsea the administrators of the Highland Road Cemetery were kind enough to search their records and to direct me to the graves of the Ternan sisters.
I had good and useful talks at various times about various topics of this book with Catherine Peters, Susannah Clapp, Miriam Margolies, Victoria Glendinning, David Gentleman and my daughter Jo Tomalin.
Professor Eric Hobsbawm gave me a detailed account of Victorian property prices and rents in north London. Dr Jonathan Miller directed me to information about treatment and charges in insane asylums in the 1840s. John Keegan told me exactly where to look for information about the army in the period of Geoffrey Wharton Robinson’s service. William Feaver shared his knowledge of the artists Frith and Cruikshank with me, and both Catherine Peters and William M. Clarke gave me information about Wilkie Collins. Jo Mitchenson of the Raymond Mander and Jo Mitchenson Theatre Collection first described to me the portrait of Dora Jordan acting with her baby in her arms. To all these specialists thanks for their generous help.
Further thanks are due to Mrs Edward Norman-Butler, who kindly sought to trace the family connections of Eva Makepeace Thackeray; to James Rowlatt, who checked the Latin poem by George Wharton Robinson and provided me with a careful translation; to Dr John House, who gave me permission to quote from his mother’s correspondence; and to Professor N. John Hall, for advice and assistance.
Tony Lacey has been a supportive and helpful editor, as has Chuck Elliott of Knopf: both made invaluable suggestions for improving the text.
I am especially grateful once more to Donna Poppy for the rare combination of meticulousness and enthusiasm she brings to copy editing. It has also been a pleasure to collaborate again with Susan Rose-Smith, most knowledgeable and indefatigable of picture researchers. Thanks also to Janice Brent for her editorial work, and particularly for bringing to my attention the story of the Hull hosier; and to John Shields for finding his great-grandfather’s obituary notice.
Finally, thanks to Michael Frayn for all his practical and p
atient help in my research, which involved much travel, driving and walking in England and abroad in quest of houses, archives, theatres, cemeteries, etc. He was the first to read my text; and his criticisms and suggestions have been adopted almost without exception.
Permission to quote from manuscripts in their collections has been kindly granted by: the Dickens House Museum, London; the Huntingdon Library, San Marino, California; the British Library, London; the Morris L. Parrish Collection, Princeton University Libraries; the Henry W. and Albert A. Berg Collection, The New York Public Library, Astor, Lenox and Tilden Foundations; and the Pierpont Morgan Library, New York.
Grateful thanks is also made to the following for permission to reproduce copyright extracts: the British Broadcasting Corporation; W. & R. Chambers Ltd; Oxford University Press Ltd; and Random Century Group (UK) Ltd.
I should like to express my special gratitude to Miss Katharine M. Longley and Robert A. Cecil Esq. for permission to quote from manuscripts in their possession; to Mr K. J. Ley for permission to quote from an unpublished article by J. W. T. Ley in the possession of the Dickens House Museum; and Mr Charles Monteith.
Every effort has been made to trace copyright holders. The publishers would be interested to hear from any copyright holders not here acknowledged.
PART ONE
1
‘N’
This is the story of someone who – almost – wasn’t there; who vanished into thin air. Her name, dates, family and experiences very nearly disappeared from the record for good. What’s more, she connived at her own obliteration; during her lifetime her children were quite ignorant of her history. Why and how this happened is the theme; and how – by a hair’s breadth – she was reclaimed from oblivion despite strenuous efforts to keep her there.
She was ‘N’, otherwise Nelly, Miss Ellen, the Patient, the Princess, E.L.T., the Dear Girl, the Darling, the magic circle of one, the little riddle, Miss T., Miss Fernan, Miss Terman, Miss Teman, Miss Turnham and probably Mrs Tringham. She played a central part in the life of Charles Dickens at a time when he was perhaps the best-known man in Britain. The relationship lasted for nearly thirteen years, from 1857 until his death in 1870. Her full name was Ellen Lawless Ternan, though she was almost always known as Nelly and will be called Nelly in these pages. She was born in 1839; was eighteen to Dickens’s forty-five when they met; and outlived him by forty-four years.