In this History Extra podcast, Charles Dickens’ scholar, Peter Oxford, talks about the famous writer.

The focus for the conversation are the things about Dickens that might not be well known. For example, the shame that Dickens experienced because of being taken out of school to work in a blacking factory as a young boy.

There’s also a conversation about Dickens’ marriage to Catherine Hogarth and the breaking up some years later. Dickens begins to write about what a bad mother Catherine was, how the two of them never got along. According to Peter Oxford, this wasn’t true. But the 2 grow apart. Charles meets the Ternan family, and the relationship with Ellen develops.

Even though Dickens was trying to protect his ‘brand’ by badmouthing Catherine, says Oxford, that’s the bit we now have trouble with.