The Invisible Woman
The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens
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- €5.99
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- €5.99
Publisher Description
The Invisible Woman by Claire Tomalin is the acclaimed story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens
Winner of the NCR Book Award, the Hawthornden Prize and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize
'This is the story of someone who - almost - wasn't there; who vanished into thin air. Her names, dates, family and experiences very nearly disappeared from the record for good ...'
Claire Tomalin's multi-award-winning story of the life of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens is a remarkable work of biography and historical revisionism that returns the neglected actress to her rightful place in history as well as providing a compelling and truthful portrait of the great Victorian novelist.
For those who enjoyed Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self and Charles Dickens: A Life; The Invisible Woman is invaluable reading for lovers of Charles Dickens, and for readers of biography everywhere.
'Will come to be seen as one of the crucial women's biographies because of its vivid dramatization of the process by which women have been written out of history and have been forced to deny their own experiences' Sean French, New Statesman
'The most original biography I read this year. Starting out with scarcely the bare bones of a story, Tomalin convinces by the end that she has got as near to the truth as anyone will' Anthony Howard, Sunday Times
'A biography of high scholarship and compelling detective work' Melvyn Bragg, Independent
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.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In a remarkable feat of biographical sleuthing, Tomalin offers the fullest account to date of Charles Dickens's secret 13-year relationship with actress Ellen (``Nelly'') Ternan. She was perhaps 18 when the famous 45-year-old novelist made her a ``fallen woman,'' according to Tomalin, who presents a compelling case that Ternan was his mistress. He could offer neither steady companionship nor marriage, unwilling to jeopardize his virtuous public image with his Victorian readership, even after the affair apparently triggered his separation from his wife, Catherine. Tomalin, biographer of Mary Wollstonecraft and Katherine Mansfield, portrays a frantic Dickens slipping into self-delusion, falsely claiming that his marriage had been awful all along. After his death in 1870, Ternan, who outlived him by 44 years, married a reverend, wrote poetry, became a right-minded Victorian lady and helped maintain the secrecy surounding her association with Dickens. Besides offering a marvelous whirl through the ``disreputable'' world of the theater, Tomalin provides a new slant on Dickens as a writer uncomfortably trapped in his own conventional morality. Photos.
