Biography
In 1837, Charles Dickens, Jr was born on 6 January, the first child of the novelist Charles Dickens and his then-wife Catherine Dickens née Hogarth. He was called "Charley" by family and friends. In 1847, aged 10, he entered the junior department of King's College, London. He went to Eton College, and studied business in Germany. In 1855, aged 18, he entered Barings Bank. In 1858, after his parents' separation, he was the only child to live with his mother. In 1861 he married Bessie Evans (Elisabeth Matilda Moule Evans, daughter of Frederick Evans, Dickens Sr's former publisher with whom he had had a falling out). They had 8 children: Mary Angela (1862–1946), Ethel Kate (1864–1936), Charles Walter (1865–1923), Sydney Margaret (1866–1955), Dorothy Gertrude (1868–1923), Beatrice (1869–1937), Cecil Mary (1871–1952), and Evelyn Bessie (1873–1924).
In 1866 he was appointed as the first Honorary Secretary of the Metropolitan Regatta In 1869, aged 32, after a failed business venture, he was hired by Dickens Sr as sub-editor of All the Year Round. In 1870, after his father's death, Dickens Jr inherited the magazine and became its editor. At this time he also bought at auction Gads Hill Place, his father's Kent home, but he was forced to give it up in 1879 because of his own ill-health.
He wrote the introductions to many posthumous reprints of his father's books, such as Barnaby Rudge and Little Dorrit, providing biographical and bibliographical insights.
In 1879 he published (jointly with his father-in-law) the first editions of his two main dictionaries, Dickens's Dictionary of London and Dickens's Dictionary of the Thames. In 1882 his dictionaries were picked up by Macmillan & Co. who also released his third dictionary, Dickens's Dictionary of Paris, delayed by verifications explained in its introduction.
Charles Dickens Jr died of leukemia in 1896, aged 59. He was buried on the same day as his younger sister Mary Dickens.
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