Ellen was considered the least theatrically gifted of the three sisters, but she worked extensively in the provinces, particularly after her father died in October 1846 in the Bethnal Green Insane Asylum.

He cast her, on the recommendation of his friend, actor and playwright Alfred Wigan, along with her mother and sister Maria, in three performances of The Frozen Deep by Wilkie Collins in Manchester in August 1857.

[3] In mid-September 1857, Charles Dickens went with Wilkie Collins to Doncaster to see Ellen Ternan perform in The Pet of the Petticoats at the Theatre Royal.

In two books published in 1935 and 1936, Thomas Wright alleged that they had an affair, stating that he had heard it from Canon Benham, who claimed that Ternan had confessed all.

[6] On the "many speculations about the exact relationship between Dickens and Ellen in this period" biographer Peter Ackroyd writes, "it has to be said at once that no evidence has been found for any of these more dramatic possibilities.

"[7] Writers prior to the scholarship of Ackroyd and Slater have largely assumed the truth of Wright and other authors' assertions that Ternan was Dickens' mistress.

[12] Ackroyd indeed suggests that the father-daughter relationship portrayed in Little Dorrit could act as a guide: "Could it not be precisely this form of love which Dickens had for Ellen Ternan?".

She sometimes travelled with him, which was the case in the event of the Staplehurst rail crash in Kent on 9 June 1865 as they and Ternan's mother were returning from a visit to France.

[17] Dickens is thought by many scholars and commentators to have based several of his female characters on Ternan, including Estella in Great Expectations, Bella Wilfer in Our Mutual Friend and Helena Landless in The Mystery of Edwin Drood.

[18] Dickens left a legacy of £1,000 to Ternan in his will on his death in 1870, precisely the same amount as to his unmarried daughter, and sufficient income from a trust fund to ensure that she would never have to work again.

She died of cancer in Fulham, London on April 25, 1914, and is buried in Highland Road Cemetery in Portsmouth, the city of Dickens's birth.

Research by Brian Ruck published in The Dickensian, Winter 2022, introduced the view that Ternan was Dickens' illegitimate daughter rather than a mistress.