Charles Dickens had 10 children with his wife, Catherine Dickens. Their first child, Charles Culliford Boz Dickens, was born in January 1837, less than a year after the couple married in London.
The family grew while Dickens was producing many of his best-known novels and managing an exceptionally demanding public career. Their children included Mary, Kate, Walter, Francis, Alfred, Sydney, Henry, Dora, and Edward, alongside their eldest son Charles. Several children were given names connected to relatives, friends, or figures Dickens admired.
Dickens’s large household was supported in part by extended family. Catherine’s sister Georgina Hogarth became a close member of the household and later served as housekeeper, adviser, and organizer. The family lived at several addresses, including 48 Doughty Street in Bloomsbury, where Dickens wrote during the early years of his marriage.
The number is sometimes misstated because Dickens and Catherine separated in 1858, and because some accounts focus only on the children who survived infancy or remained closely associated with their father. The standard biographical count is 10 children.