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Tuesday, 20th January 2009 (1693 views)

A gold ring presented to Charles Dickens by Alfred Lord Tennyson is being auctioned in February this year.

Poet laureate Tennyson was a friend of the Victorian writer and the ring is inscribed 'Alfred Tennyson to Charles Dickens 1854'.

The gold ring, which has a guide price of £25,000 to £35,000, is believed to be evidence that Dickens had a secret love child with his sister-in-law and housekeeper Georgina Hogarth.

According to auctioneer Nigel Ward of Pontrilas, Herefordshire, the ring is owned by descendants of Hogarth who wish to remain anonymous and claim that Dickens had an illegitimate son Hector.

The writer himself denied an affair with Hogarth, but Mr Ward has stated that the ring's sellers are convinced that it was owned by his allegedly secret son Hector Charles Bulwer Lytton Dickens.

A gold signet ring owned local benefactor Sir John Leman is being placed on display at Beccles Museum in Suffolk as part of a collection of items coming from the Victoria & Albert Museum in London, the Advertiser24 reported recently.

 

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