Charles Dickens'' Favorite Daughter : The Life, Loves, and Art of Katey Dickens Perugini

One of my most vivid memories from childhood is of a painting my parents owned. I loved it and would stare at it wondering who the beautiful woman was, dressed all in black standing with her back to the viewer, her head turned just enough to enable you to see her face, but not quite enough to prevent her from being mysterious. Two aspects particularly fascinated me: the bustle of her dress with its thick satin bow perched on the top and the way her hair was arranged, which I would try to emulate (without success).I remember asking my father who the person in the painting was. He told me she was Kate, Charles Dickens’ daughter, and my great-great-great aunt. The painter, he said, was John Millais, a very famous artist. At the age of eight, I was not particularly interested in Millais, but the desire to find out more about Kate, or Katey as I came to know her, intensified. Later, while I was studying for a post-graduate degree in the history of art, her name—in its several incarnations—kept appearing: Katey Dickens, Kate Collins, Kate Perugini. Usually mentioned as an adjunct of her famous father, she was however also given separate status as an artist, as a model, as one of Lord Leighton’s circle, and as the wife of two artists. As the daughter of the most famous writer of the time, Katey Dickens enjoyed a high profile in Victorian society. She pursued her love of painting, acted in her father's plays, socialized with the Thackerays, and modeled for painter John Everett Millais. This riveting biography finally sheds light on her extraordinary life both as a Dickens and an artist. The turbulent family life in the Dickens household drove Katey to marry young. Her first husband was the chronically ailing Charlie Collins, brother of the famous author Wilkie Collins. After Charlie's untimely demise, the widowed Katey fell in love and married the handsome Italian artist Carlo Perugini. Charles Dickens lovingly nicknamed Katey "Lucifer Box" because of her fiery temper. In many ways, Katey was ahead of her time; she refused to be eclipsed by her father and fought to establish herself as an artist. She became renowned as a portrait painter and exhibited regularly at the Royal Academy. Katey lived to be almost ninety and her artistic prestige, which flourished during her lifetime, still persists to this day.