Grave of Catherine Dickens and Baby Dora

[Victorian Web Home —> Visual Arts —> Sculpture —> Funerary sculpture —> Highgate Cemetery]

Grave of Charles and Catherine Dickens's infant Dora (1850-1851), and of Catherine herself (1819-1889)

Large inscribed stone, edged with decorative iron rails

1851

Highgate Cemetery, west side

Swains Lane, London

See below for commentary

Photograph by Simon Edwards, and text and formatting by Jacqueline Banerjee. [Mouse over the text for links.]

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the photographer and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Dickens had been distressed at the thought of leaving little Dora "shut up in a vault" in Highgate Cemetery (Forster III: 32). More names were later recorded here: at the time he was writing Dickens's biography, Forster reported that "on the stone which covers her is now written also her father's name, and those of two of her brothers" (Forster II: 461). But neither Dickens himself, nor the two sons who predeceased him, were actually buried here. Catherine herself would not be interred with her, or her name added, for nearly four decades, long after both Dickens's and Forster's lifetimes — Dickens died in 1870, and was buried in Westminster Abbey, and Forster died in 1876.

Related Material

The Children of Charles & Catherine Dickens

Bibliography

Forster, John. The life of Charles Dickens. Vol. 2: 1842-1853. London: Chapman and Hall, 1873. Internet Archive. Contributed by Cornell University Library. Web. 7 May 2021.

_____. The life of Charles Dickens. Vol. 3: 1852-1870. London: Chapman and Hall, 1874. Internet Archive. Contributed by Cornell University Library. Web. 7 May 2021.

Created 7 May 2021