Authors Talk: Mr & Mrs Charles Dickens: Her Story

After twenty-two years of marriage, Charles Dickens banished his wife, Kate from their home and nine children and wrecked her reputation to protect his own when he fell in love with an eighteen-year-old actress.

Mr & Mrs Charles Dickens is Kate’s story: a poignant self-portrait of a woman struggling to make sense of a love that defined, but nearly destroyed her. Re-reading her husband’s love letters after his sudden death, she celebrates the happy times they shared but also speaks up for herself to expose the darker side of the man the world reveres.

On her deathbed Kate asked her younger daughter to give Charles’s letters to the British Museum ‘so the world may know he loved me once.’ This novel masquerades as a memoir to fulfil her dying wish and restore her to history as more than a famous author’s discarded wife. It bestows on Kate the respect, dignity, agency and voice she was denied in life.

On Wednesday 18th March 2026, join us as author Annie Elliot provides a wonderful insight into the creation of this novel. 

Annie Elliot has an MA in Creative Writing and a BA (Hons) in Literary Studies. Before retiring she worked in local government, as a newspaper reporter and taught communication. She has written a booklet to help teachers understand dyslexic children’s difficulties. Her short stories and flash fiction have been successful in literary competitions. She has been longlisted for the Mslexia Novel Award. She writes and performs monologues. Fay Weldon described Annie Elliot as a natural writer and her work as ‘completely brilliant’. Nikesh Shukla said she had a ‘really great comedian’s eye for detail and absurdity’ and was struck by her talent for the acerbic and moving. Stephen Moss summed up her bitter-sweet style as funny and tragic. Mr & Mrs Charles Dickens is her debut novel. Her website is annieelliot.co.uk.