Book description
Charles Dickens is the acclaimed definitive biography by
bestselling author Claire Tomalin
Charles Dickens was a phenomenon: a demonicly hardworking
journalist, the father of ten children, a tireless walker and
traveller, a supporter of liberal social causes, but most of all a
great novelist - the creator of characters who live immortally in the
English imagination: the Artful Dodger, Mr Pickwick, Pip, David
Copperfield, Little Nell, Lady Dedlock, and many more.
At the age of twelve he was sent to work in a blacking factory by
his affectionate but feckless parents. From these unpromising
beginnings, he rose to scale all the social and literary heights,
entirely through his own efforts. When he died, the world mourned, and
he was buried - against his wishes - in Westminster Abbey. Yet the
brilliance concealed a divided character: a republican, he disliked
America; sentimental about the family in his writings, he took up
passionately with a young actress; usually generous, he cut off his
impecunious children.
From the award-winning author of Samuel Pepys, Charles
Dickens: A Life paints an unforgettable portrait of Dickens,
capturing brilliantly the complex character of this great genius. If
you loved Great Expectations, Oliver Twist and A Christmas
Carol, this book is invaluable reading.
'By far the most humane and imaginatively sympathetic account yet
for the general reader' Amanda Craig, New Statesman
Claire Tomalin is the award-winning author of eight highly acclaimed
biographies, including: The Life and Death of Mary
Wollstonecraft; Shelley and His World; Katherine
Mansfield: A Secret Life; The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly
Ternan and Charles Dickens; Mrs Jordan's Profession; Jane Austen: A
Life; Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self; Thomas Hardy: The Time-Torn
Man and, most recently, Charles Dickens: A Life. A former
literary editor of the New Statesman and the Sunday
Times, she is married to the playwright and novelist Michael Frayn.
Claire Tomalin was literary editor of the
New Statesman
then the
Sunday Times
before leaving to become a full-time writer. Her first book,
The Life
and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft
, won the Whitbread First Book Award, and she has since written a number
of highly acclaimed and bestselling biographies.
The Invisible Woman
, a definitive account of Dickens' relationship with the actress Ellen
Ternan, won three major literary awards, and
Samuel Pepys: The
Unequalled Self
was Whitbread Book of the Year in 2002. Claire Tomalin is married to the
writer Michael Frayn.
