Dickens: Public Life and Private Passion (Hardcover)

While presenting a warm but astringent portrait of the man who (along with George Eliot) can be classed as the greatest writer of his age, Ackroyd also masterfully recreates the relationship with the actress Ellen Ternan, a strong and intelligent woman (herself the subject of a biography by Claire Tomalin, The Inviisble Woman who, like her lover, outwardly observed the proprieties while living her real life behind closed doors. Ackroyd also vividly conjures the reality of Victorian life, the issues that sparked Dickens' fervent call for social reform, and the great landmarks of the time, which profoundly affected his life and work. --Barry Forshaw

Review
In this remarkable new biography, Ackroyd offers a different view of Dickens to that presented in his earlier study of the author. Dickens had everything - fame, success and riches. He was mercurial, had enormous vitality and humour, along with a sense of loss and longing that would constantly appear in his work. Like many eminent Victorians, he led a double life: although he insisted that nothing in the newspapers he edited should upset his middle class readers, he regularly indulged in dubious night-time escapades with fellow author Wilkie Collins and kept a secret mistress, Ellen Ternan. Ackroyd vividly conjures the reality of Victorian life, the issues that sparked Dickens' fervent calls for social reform which profoundly affected his life and work.

Peter Ackroyd's writing is never less than compelling - one of his gifts is saying in a sentence that which would take someone else a paragraph - and this biography of Dickens is no exception. Published to accompany the BBC television series, the book's aim - and achievement - is to get inside the skin of the contradictory man who was indisputably one of the great writers of his time. His affinity with the underclass was derived from an uncomfortable period at the age of 12 when he was forced to work in a London blacking factory after his father, who drank, ended up in prison for unpaid debts. It was only through his phenomenal talent and frightening energy that the young Dickens, fortunately allowed to attend school again once his father was released, completed a three-year shorthand course in just three months, and embarked on a career as a parliamentary reporter. The author's marriage to Catherine comes under the microscope, as does his obsession with his sister-in-law, who lived with the couple until her tragic early death. We follow the couple on their successful, if controversial, tour of America and sympathise with Dickens over his ever-increasing financial responsibilities, with an expanding family of children and feckless parents and brothers to support. It seems that a childhood-instilled fear of penury, his passion for storytelling and that for exposing the poor living conditions of the working class all combined to produce Dickens's prodigiously energetic and passionate approach to his work. The passions were as private as they were public; a long-standing affair with the bright and beautiful actress Ellen Ternan precipitated the end of a marriage that had become lacklustre and stultifying. There was no divorce, but the couple formally separated. Ackroyd sums up the contradictions of the author's life perfectly on the last page, noting that while his death was mourned by the great and the good worldwide, and the British public queued in their thousands to pay their respects, neither Catherine Dickens nor Ellen Ternan attended his burial. A good read, and all the erudition one would expect from a writer of Ackroyd's calibre. (Kirkus UK)

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• Books > Biography > Novelists, Poets & Playwrights > Novelists
• Books > Fiction > Authors, A-Z > A > Ackroyd, Peter
• Books > Poetry, Drama & Criticism > History & Criticism > Literary Studies > 19th Century
• Books > Poetry, Drama & Criticism > History & Criticism > Novels & Novelists

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