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Charles Dickens: A Life Hardcover – 6 Oct 2011

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Claire Tomalin (Author)
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Claire Tomalin (Author)
4.5 out of 5 stars 182 customer reviews
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 576 pages
  • Publisher: Viking (6 Oct. 2011)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0670917672
  • ISBN-13: 978-0670917679
  • Product Dimensions: 15.9 x 5.1 x 24.1 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (182 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 84,994 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Product Description

Review

With Claire Tomalin as our guide, the life of Charles Dickens, 200 years after his birth, reads as newly minted as one of his novels (Sunday Express)

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Customer Reviews

Top Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 starsA great biography of a tarnished colossus.
By S. J. Williams TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE VOICE on 12 Oct. 2011
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
This is a terrific biography, everything one would expect from Claire Tomalin: thoroughly researched, immensely readable and judicious. It is well illustrated with photographs, engravings, annotated maps and brief details of the vast number of figures who will move through its pages. It is also well referenced so the curious reader can easily follow up details for further exploration.

To capture her subject fully-formed, she prefaces the book with an account of the newly but still precariously successful writer's intervention in the case of a poor slavey accused of murdering her new born child: her plight and experience is profoundly shocking and deeply moving. Dickens' determination to see justice done and very real financial and moral support given, is vivid and moving testimony to what was a lifelong commitment to the poor, downtrodden and unjustly treated. Many such stories could be told and there isn't space in a volume of this size to detail them all. But we certainly get a vivid picture of Dickens as a man deeply animated by a desire to improve the world he also entertains, and as a powerhouse of energy and obsessive activity: the account of his literary commitments at the end of his annus mirabilis (1836) is quite terrifying; his determination to keep writing and giving public readings at the end of his life even more so. (It is unsurprising that the last, moving photograph in the volume shows an exhausted man looking far older than his 58 or so years.)

Tomalin acknowledges his greatness as a writer: though seeing the dross amongst the annual Christmas stories and significant sections of some of the novels, the great works of Dickens' later years particularly (Copperfield, Bleak House, Little Dorritt, Great Expectations and so on) are given their due.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsThe Human Factor
By Mr. D. James on 23 Oct. 2012
Format: Paperback Verified Purchase
Claire Tomalin, Charles Dickens: A Life

Unlike Peter Ackroyd's Dickens, which begins with Dickens's death at Gad's Hill in 1870, Claire Tomalin's book opens with an 1840 episode with Dickens as juror at a murder trial. The contrast between these two excellent biographies is thus set from the start: Ackroyd will be meticulously thorough and painstakingly detailed, while Tomalin's approach will tend to be more impressionistic. Strangely, Tomalin the biographer's book reads more like a novel than that of Ackroyd the novelist. While both biographies are crammed with fascinating detail, Tomalin, where possible, confines this to the notes at the end of the book. Ackroyd, too, is prolific with his notes, quotes and suggestions for further reading, but the sheer length of his book, not to mention the length of his chapters, is somewhat overwhelming: he provides the researcher with over 50 pages of Notes on Text and Sources. Tomalin is more economical and an easier read and she neatly divides her chapters into nice bite-size pieces.

I especially relished the way in which Tomalin interlaces penetrating criticism of the novels with Dickens's life at the time of writing. Of course Ackroyd does the same and equally well, as, for example with the relationship between the author's random opening of Tristram Shandy as a spur to the writing of Dombey and Son. But Tomalin embeds this episode in a chapter headed `Dombey, with Interruptions 1846-1848,' in which the novel seems to grow out of the author's life like an unruly plant against a background of Chartism, being attacked by a horse, attending the funeral of his publisher William Hall, writing to Thackeray and the setting up of his Home for Homeless Women.Read more ›
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5.0 out of 5 starsA biography that reads like a Novel.
By ACB(swansea) TOP 100 REVIEWER on 7 Oct. 2011
Format: Hardcover Verified Purchase
Claire Tomalin has produced a superbly researched and sourced biography of Charles Dickens with full references and acknowledgements. The book reads like a Dickens' novel. His life is replete with the influences that led to his writing output. 'Dickensian' is part of the English concept of Victorian living. It conjures up poverty, social injustice, gin-sodden lives with rags to riches opportunities. Claire Tomalin details the complex life of Dickens in great detail. It is remarkably concise with economy of words. Never a dull moment and never boring. We read Dickens (born 1812) had a privileged upbringing cut short by the exuberances of his father John who was committed to debtors' prison in Marshalsea, Southwark. Charles, age 12, was forced to work in a warehouse in Hungerford Stairs pasting labels on blacking 10 hours a day. The hours and observations of working conditions and sometimes cruelty clearly left it's mark. His later boarding with the Rylance family and working with the wealthy Crewe family gave Charles much of the background for his publications.
Initially publishing cliffhanger serial outputs, he used the pseudonym 'Boz' derived from his brother Augustus called Moses by Charles, then Boses, then (catarrh problems) Boz.

Charles Dickens was a prolific writer whose iconic prose has been written, translated, extended into film, TV series, musicals. His concern for social reform is well described by Claire Tomalin. His literary output was matched by his athletic and apparent sexual needs. He fathered ten children with wife Catherine Hogarth. Later, he found young actress Ellen Ternan whose relationship with Charles and the effects on his wife and family are profiled expertly by the author.
It is clear that Charles Dickens was more than a novelist.Read more ›
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

3.0 out of 5 starsgoes on a bit

On the plus side, this biography is clearly and attractively written.

On the minus side, it goes on and on, with event after event, without the author's considering... Read more

Published 16 days ago by John Davison
5.0 out of 5 starsA brilliant biography

Love Claire Tomalin as a biographer, having previously read her book on Samuel Pepys . Really enjoying reading about Charles Dickens, this very talented and hardworking writer,... Read more

Published 1 month ago by Lady Helen
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Came sooner that expected and with very good quality.

Published 1 month ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

Perfect. Very quick dispatch.

Published 8 months ago by Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 starsReally enjoyed this.

Love Claire Tomalin.

Published 8 months ago by Ruby Childs.
5.0 out of 5 starsFive Stars

great

Published 9 months ago by jeannie camm
5.0 out of 5 starsVery readable - I enjoyed it

This biography is a very readable scholarly introduction to Dickens which benefits from the authors’ early research into Nelly Ternan (who was probably Dickens’ mistress in later... Read more

Published 9 months ago by bayman15
5.0 out of 5 starsUnputdownable biography

Brilliant. I real page turner of the story of Dickens' life together with some interesting literary observations on his books.

Published 10 months ago by Katy M
2.0 out of 5 starsTwo Stars

Boring

Published 10 months ago by David Jackman
4.0 out of 5 starsFour Stars

Enjoyed by the Dickens fan for whom it was purchased.

Published 12 months ago by Marzipan

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