Charles Dickens and Catherine Hogarth married in 1836, when he was 24 and she was 21. From then until the time of their divorce 20 years later, Catherine got pregnant at least a dozen times, had at least two miscarriages and gave birth to 10 children. Nine survived infancy, eight reached adulthood, and all of them disappointed their father, who lamented “having brought up the largest family ever known with the smallest disposition to do anything for themselves.”

A new group biography, Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens (FSG, 256 pp., $25) by Robert Gottlieb, documents the lives of the mediocre progeny of a great man. Making use of existing scholarship, Mr. Gottlieb has digested the stories of the Dickens children into easily consumed biographical sketches, illustrated with photographs and portraits. But this neatly condensed book offers more than mere trajectories of not-so-great lives. Instead, Mr. Gottlieb, the dance critic for this paper, has produced a comparative study of child-raising, one that would seem to attest to the value of contemporary ideas: cuddling, affirmation, diagnosis of pathologies, psychopharmacology, college. The Victorians were more resigned. A child’s path through life was not so much guided as observed and judged, perhaps with the occasional input of a phrenologist. A failed child was a failure. A dead child was dead. “There are things about the Victorians that we will never understand,” Mr. Gottlieb writes. And yet, after brief contemplation of today’s pampered scions (George W. Bush, Paris Hilton, Chet Hanks), the Victorians might have had a point. Read More