Author. Received good schooling. Was for a time clerk to a London commercial firm; turned to writing. Contributed to annuals—Friendship's Offering, Amaranth; wrote for Monthly Magazine, Court Magazine, Bentley's Miscellany, and other periodicals. For some time editor of Chapman & Hall's Library of Fiction; for about eight years, publisher's reader and reviser for Bentley. Unsuccessful in making a living by writing; five times, from 1836 to 1854, found himself forced to ask for financial assistance from Royal Literary Fund; assistance granted in each instance. Stated in his last appeal that he intended to go to New Zealand to set up as schoolmaster. Emigrated to Australia, 1857; no more successful there than he had been in England. Died destitute in Melbourne hospital. Author of The Solitary, 1831 (reprinted in The Solitary, and Other Poems, 1849); The Autobiography of Jack Ketch, 1834; Richard Savage. A Romance of Real Life, 1842; also The Cavalier, a play produced at the Haymarket, 1836; a life of Sir Walter Ralegh, and other works. Brought out revised edition, 1846, of Dickens's Memoirs of Joseph Grimaldi.
The literary association of Whitehead and Dickens resulted from their both being periodical editors and contributors. In 1836, when Chapman & Hall wished to obtain as contributor to their Library of Fiction the author of certain sketches in the Monthly Magazine, whose name they did not know, Whitehead informed them that the writer was Dickens; Dickens contributed two sketches to the Library of Fiction under Whitehead's editorship. Whitehead was, thus, responsible for Dickens's initial connection with Chapman & Hall. There is, however, no substantiation for the story that Whitehead, having declined to write for Chapman & Hall the letterpress for Robert Seymour's sporting sketches, suggested Dickens in his stead—thus leading to the writing of Pickwick (Fielding, "Charles Whitehead and Charles Dickens", Review of English Studies, April 1952). Whitehead wrote for Bentley's Miscellany under Dickens's editorship (as also later}; Dickens had highly recommended him to Bentley (December 5 1836) as a contributor—a writer "equally admirable" in "humourous and grave sketches".
Dickens took an earnest concern in Whitehead's struggle with poverty, with the details of which he was acquainted. Whitehead's third and fourth appeals for assistance from the Literary Fund were each supported by a letter from Dickens. In his fIrst letter, November 6 1843, Dickens stated that he was writing at Whitehead's request. Of Whitehead he wrote: "I know him to be a gentleman of very great accomplishments, and of very high original power as a writer of Fiction. I have always considered him to be an author of remarkable ability; have read his productions with strong interest; and have borne my testimony to their merit on many occasions, when I little thought he would ever need such a service as this at my hands" (Fielding, "Charles Whitehead and Charles Dickens"). In 1845 Dickens agreed to become a subscriber to a book that Whitehead was planning to bring out. This may have been The Solitary, and Other Poems, for which Dickens was engaged four years later in obtaining subscribers (letter to Miss Burdett-Coutts, May 7 1849, in Heart of Charles Dickens, ed. Johnson; to Bulwer-Lytton, May 11, 1849).
Dickens's interest in Whitehead further appears in connection with rum as a contributor to H.W. On December 30 1855, Dickens wrote to Wills: "If an article comes to the office from Charles Whitehead, will you immediately read it, and unless it be out of the question: which I hope it won't be—immediately get it cast off, and immediately pay for it: with a turn of the scale in his favour? He is going to New Zealand". The only item by Whitehead to appear in H.W. after the date of Dickens's letter was "Nemesis"—a story, not an article (mentioned by title and author in a later letter from Dickens to Wills, April 7 1856: MS Huntington Library). If it was this item that Dickens wished to have paid for generously, his wishes were ignored. For the 34 1/4 column story (marked in the Office Book 36 1/4 columns). Whitehead was paid only £15.
Author: Anne Lohrli; © University of Toronto Press, 1971.
Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Australian Dictionary of Biography
