Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens

A Life

Summary

THE ACCLAIMED DEFINITIVE BIOGRAPHY OF ONE OF THE GREATEST BRITISH WRITERS OF ALL TIME

Charles Dickens was a phenomenon: a journalist, a father of ten, a supporter of liberal social causes, but most of all, a great novelist.

From unpromising beginnings sent to work a black factory age twelve, he rose to such social and literary heights that when he died, the world mourned. Yet the brilliance concealed a divided character: a republican, he disliked America; sentimental about the family, he took up with a young actress; usually generous, he cut off his impecunious children.

From the award-winning author Claire Tomalin, 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

Reviews

  • A biographer who goes from strength to strength
    Melvyn Bragg, Guardian

About the author

Claire Tomalin

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. They include Jane Austen: A Life, The Invisible Woman, a definitive account of Dickens' relationship with the actress Ellen Ternan, which won three major literary awards, and Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self was Whitbread Book of the Year in 2002. In the highly acclaimed Charles Dickens: A Life, she presents a full-scale biography of our greatest novelist. She is married to the writer Michael Frayn.
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