Domesticity March 1874–1879

Abstract

Wilkie returns to Martha and his children and to Caroline and her daughter in Gloucester Place on 19 March 1874, and a continuation of his intense literary activity. The writing of The Law and the Lady, negotiations with George Bentley, George Smith and Andrew Chatto (of Chatto and Windus) over the rights of his novels, also preoccupy him. On 19 November 1874, he forms an agreement with Chatto and Windus who are to publish his subsequent novels. On Christmas Day 1874, there is a “Christmas Box in the shape of a big boy” [29 December 1874], a son William Charles Dawson, his and Martha’s third child.