Ellen Ternan

Ellen Ternan.

Ellen Ternan is sometimes confused with her near contemporary, the Shakespearean actress Ellen Terry, whose career was more distinguished, but who did not have an affair with Dickens.

Ellen Lawless Ternan (3 March 1839 – 25 April 1914), also known as Nelly Ternan or Nelly Robinson, was an English actress who is mainly known as the woman for whom Charles Dickens separated from his wife Catherine.

Life

Ellen Lawless Ternan was born in Rochester, Kent. She was the third of four children, including a brother who died in infancy and a sister called Frances (later the second wife of Thomas Adolphus Trollope, the brother of Anthony Trollope), born to her parents who were both actors of some distinction. Ternan made her stage debut in Sheffield at the age of three, and she and her two sisters were presented as "infant phenomena". Ternan was considered the least gifted of the three sisters, but she worked extensively in the provinces and in 1857 she was spotted by Dickens performing at London's Haymarket Theatre. He cast her, along with her mother and one of her sisters, in a performance of The Frozen Deep in Manchester.

Dickens was forty-five when he met Ellen Ternan, and she was eighteen. He became passionately attached to her, but the relationship was kept secret from the general public. Dickens had become disillusioned with his wife, who lacked his energy and intellect. Ternan, in contrast, was clever and charming, forceful of character, undomesticated, and interested in literature, the theatre, and politics. Matters came to a head in 1858, when Catherine Dickens accidentally received a bracelet meant for Ternan, and the Dickenses separated that May.

Ternan left the stage in 1860, and was supported by Dickens from then on. She sometimes travelled with him, though he abandoned a plan to take her on his visit to America in 1867 for fear that their relationship would be publicised by the American press. She lived in houses he took under false names at Slough and later at Nunhead, and may have had a son by Dickens who died in infancy, although this isn't certain (neither Dickens, Ternan, nor Ternan's sisters left any account of the relationship, and most correspondence relevant to the relationship was destroyed). At his death Dickens provided her with a £1,000 legacy and sufficient income from a trust fund to ensure that she would never have to work again.

In 1876, Ternan married George Wharton Robinson, an Oxford graduate, who was twelve years her junior. She presented herself as 14 years younger (23 years old rather than 37). The couple had a son, Geoffrey, and a daughter, Gladys, and ran a boys' school in Margate. Ternan spent her last years in Southsea, and died in Fulham, London.

Ternan was the subject of a biography by Claire Tomalin in 1990. Some records relating to Ellen Ternan and her family are held by Senate House Library, University of London^[1]

In theatre and television

Simon Gray's play about her life, Little Nell had its world premiere in 2007 at the Theatre Royal, Bath. It was directed by Sir Peter Hall and starred Loo Brealey as Ternan. The affair was featured in the docudramas Dickens (BBC, 2002) and Dickens' Secret Lovers (2008, Channel 4 — it was the main subject of this programme, presented by Charles Dance and with Ternan played by Amy Shiels and Dickens by David Haig). Ternan is also featured in the novel "Drood" by Dan Simmons.

Notes

1. ^ Description of Ternan family papers

References

• Nisbet, Ada (1952), Dickens and Ellen Ternan, University of California Press, ISBN 0-520-00946-0 .
• Tomalin, Claire (1990), The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens, Penguin Books, ISBN 0-14-012136-6 .
• The Ternan family papers (description), Senate House Library, University of London, http://archives.ulrls.lon.ac.uk/dispatcher.aspx?action=search&database=ChoiceArchive&search=IN=MS915 .
• Davies, Serena (16 June 2008). "The secret affair that almost ruined Dickens". The Telegraph. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/06/16/nosplit/bvtvdickens16.xml. Retrieved 2008-06-16. 

Persondata
Name	Ternan, Ellen
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	3 March 1839
Place of birth
Date of death	25 April 1914
Place of death