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Charlotte Turner Smith (1749-1806) was born in London to a wealthy family. Unfortunately, her father’s reckless spending forced her into an early, unhappy marriage with Benjamin Smith, an abusive gambler who was completely unsupportive of her writing, in which she had begun to immerse herself. Though her novels, and particularly her poetry, received critical acclaimed, her life was one of general unhappiness—a constant battle against dwindling finances, attempts to separate herself from a violent, reckless husband, and losing much of her inheritance to a nearly-forty year long legal battle that became the inspiration for Dickens’ central case in Bleak House. By 1803, Smith was again poverty-stricken with severe gout; the disease made writing painful and later almost paralyzed her. On February 23, 1806, Charlotte finally received some of her inheritance, but was too ill to do anything with it, and she died on October 28, 1806.
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