Elizabeth Dickens Elizabeth Dickens Elizabeth Culliford Dickens (née Barrow; 21 December 1789 – 13 September 1863) was the wife of John Dickens and the mother of English novelist Charles Dickens. She was the source for Mrs. Nickleby in her son's novel "Nicholas Nickleby" and for Mrs Micawber in "David Copperfield". One of eight children of Mary Culliford (1771–1851) and Charles Barrow (1759–1826), Elizabeth Barrow was introduced to John Dickens by her brother, Thomas Culliford Barrow, when the two men were working at the Navy Pay Office in nearby Somerset House. When John Dickens first met Elizabeth she was "a small pretty girl
Dickens in America an emotional reading of “Ode to an Expiring Frog.” The show finishes with a visit to Eastern State Penitentiary, a prison that Dickens talked about at length in "American Notes". Dickens wrote how the prisoners had to wear a hood when arriving that prevented them seeing the path from the front gate to their cell, so they had no concept of where in the building they were. Miriam attempts to do the same but can’t go far before she gets too uncomfortable to go on. The prisoners were kept in solitary confinement, with only a bible to read. Naturally many