Mary Hogarth beautiful and light-hearted". When Robert Story visited the Hogarth household in 1836, he described Hogarth as "the fairest flower of spring". Dickens showed particular affection to Hogarth, and described her as "a close friend, an exceptional sister, a companion at home." It is believed that Hogarth was the first person to read "The Pickwick Papers" and "Oliver Twist", as Dickens valued Hogarth's input and feedback more than his wife's. In the early hours of 7 May 1837, after Hogarth had returned from a showing of "Is She His Wife?" at the St James's Theatre with the Dickens couple, she collapsed
Hogarth Press respectively. The Hogarth Press produced a number of publication series that were affordable as well as being attractively bound and printed, and usually commissioned from well known authors. These include the initial "Hogarth Essays" in three series 1924–1947 (36 titles), "Hogarth Lectures on Literature" (2 series 1927–1951), "Merttens Lectures on War and Peace" (8 titles 1927–1936), "Hogarth Living Poets" (29 titles 1928–1937), "Day to Day Pamphlets" (1930–1939), "Hogarth Letters" (12 titles 1931–1933) and "World-Makers and World-Shakers" (4 titles 1937). The "Essays" were the first series produced by the press and include works by Virginia Woolf, Leonard Woolf and Gertrude Stein.