author
Mamie Dickens
1838–1896
A close companion of Charles Dickens and a writer in her own right, she preserved a vivid, personal picture of one of literature’s most famous figures. Her memoirs and editorial work helped shape how later generations came to know the Dickens family story.
1 Audiobook
My Father as I Recall Him
by Mamie Dickens
About the author
Born in London on March 6, 1838, Mary "Mamie" Dickens was the eldest daughter of Charles Dickens and Catherine Dickens. She grew up in the center of a remarkable literary household and remained especially close to her father, later becoming one of the family members best placed to share memories of his private life.
Mamie also had her own place in Victorian literary history. She wrote My Father as I Recall Him, a warm and personal remembrance of Charles Dickens, and worked with her aunt Georgina Hogarth to edit the first collection of his letters. Those books helped preserve both the public legacy and the more intimate, domestic side of the Dickens circle.
She never married and spent much of her life within the orbit of her family’s fame, but her writing gave her a lasting voice of her own. Mamie Dickens died on July 23, 1896, and is remembered today not only as Charles Dickens’s daughter, but as an important witness to his world.