Mrs Dickens: Emily Howes in conversation with Natasha Poliszczuk

Join us for an evening with the author of Mrs. Dickens, Emily Howes, in conversation with Natasha Poliszczuk.

Emily's latest book Mrs Dickens has been described as 'a beautiful, heartbreaking, immersive novel, which brings a woman's silenced story back to vivid, irrepressible life'. Emily and Natasha will discuss the turbulent (and possibly enraging) story of Kate Dickens, who wrote a cookbook, climbed Vesuvius and travelled the world - but whose husband tried to erase her, saying of their marriage ‘a page in my life that once had writing on it is now completely blank and has not a single word upon it’. 

London, 1836. Nineteen-year-old Kate Hogarth falls in love with the young journalist Charles Dickens. In the early days of their marriage, Charles is infatuated with his new bride and Kate delights in her new life, the balm to her husband's irrepressible spirit. But as he finds fame as a novelist and the family rise through the ranks of Victorian society, Kate becomes increasingly aware of his frustration that real people cannot be manipulated as easily as his characters. Mrs Dickens traces a long marriage in all its tenderness, grief, romance and fury. It illuminates the life of a complex, forgotten woman whose voice often went unheard but whose story deserves to be told.

Emily Howes is the award-winning author of The Painter's Daughters, which was one of the Times’ top ten historical fiction novels of the year, and was selected for the BBC Radio 2 Book Club. Natasha Poliszczuk is a freelance writer and editor.

You can pre-order a copy of Mrs Dickens on our website.