DICKENS' "AUNT GEORGY."

Star (Christchurch), Issue 12063, 18 July 1917, Page 4

DICKENS' "AUNT GEORGY."

DEATH OF SJS/l'i'JMN-LAW AT NINETY. Miss Georgina Hogarth, sister-in-law of Charles Dickens and intimately associated with his life ;uid writings, has died in England at the ago of ninety. iShe was - " .Aunt Georgy" to the Dickens family. Her love of children inspired a rough sketch which Dickens made, in a notebook dated 1805, of a character for some future novel. He wrote: '• She—sacrificed to her children, ana sufficiently rewarded. From a child herself, always ' the children ' (of somebody else) to engross her. And so it comes to pass that she is never married ; never herself has a child ; is always devoted ' to the children ' (of somebody eke); and they love, her; and she has always youth dependent on her till her death-- and dies quite happily." Jn his mil Dickens solemnly .enjoined " my dear children always to remember how much they owe to the snicl Georgina Hogarth and never to be wanting in n grateful and affectionate attachment to Ivor." After his return from America she had become, a member of his household, in which she remained until his death. To the end she was an admirer of D;okens, and at the meetings of the Dickens Fellowship was often an honoiired guest. All acknowledged her as an authority on his works. Mr Arthur Haucrh, of Messrs Chapman and Hall, the Dickens publishers, quotes her testimony about Edwin Drood. She recalled that Dickens once said to her. " T didn't call the book ' The Murder of Erhrm Drood.' but 'The Mvstew of Edwin Drood.' " From this Mr "Wnneh thinks it may fairlv be inferred that, in DiokonsV) view, Drood was not dead.