Women Too Must Confront Heroes Who Are Complicated ...

But nobody would ban my former hero, Charles Dickens, from the literary canon. Nor should they.

The old saying goes, “Familiarity breeds contempt.”

After visiting the London home of my then favorite author, I was shocked to learn that Charles Dickens, who wrote A Christmas Carol, was an inexcusable cad toward his wife of a quarter century, Catherine.

Dickens married Catherine Hogarth in 1836 and both were happy until she started having a ten childre…