Charles Dickens
A Life
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4.1 • 18 Ratings
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- $6.99
Publisher Description
Award-winning Claire Tomalin, author of A Life of My Own, sets the standard for sophisticated and popular biography, having written lives of Jane Austen, Samuel Pepys, and Thomas Hardy, among others. Here she tackles the best recognized and loved man of nineteenth-century England, Charles Dickens; a literary leviathan whose own difficult path to greatness inspired the creation of classic novels such as Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and Hard Times.
From his sensational public appearances to the obsessive love affair that led him to betray, deceive, and break with those closest to him, Charles Dickens: A Life is a triumph of the biographer’s craft, a comedy that turns to tragedy in a story worthy of Dickens’ own pen.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
"veryone finds their own version of Charles Dickens ," concludes award-winning British biographer Tomalin: Dickens the mesmerist, amateur thespian, political radical, protector of prostitutes, benefactor of orphans, restless walker all emerge from the welter of information about the writer's domestic arrangements, business dealings, childhood experiences, illnesses, and travels. Bolstered by citations from correspondence with and about Dickens, Tomalin's portrait brings shadows and depth to the great Victorian novelist's complex personality. Tomalin (Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self) displays her deep scholarship in reviewing, for instance, the debate about Dickens's relations with Nelly Ternan, concluding that the balance of evidence is that they were lovers. She also highlights the contrasts between his charitable actions toward strangers and his "casting off" of several relatives from father to brothers to sons, who kept importuning him for money: "Once Dickens had drawn a line he was pitiless." By the end of this biography, readers unfamiliar with Dickens will come away with a new understanding of his driven personality and his impact on literature and 19th-century political and social issues. Tomalin provides her usual rich, penetrating portrait; one can say of her book what she says of Dickens's picture of 19th -century England: it's "crackling, full of truth and life, with his laughter, horror and indignation." Illus.; maps.
Customer Reviews
Charles Dickens a Life
I was so looking forward to buying a copy of this book to be able to read it on my iPad with it's great retina display . . . but was totally disappointed by the fact that the publisher Penguin Press chose to offer a truncated version of this book. WHERE ARE THE PAGES OF PHOTOGRAPHS!!!!
I am holding a physical copy of this book in my hands that includes THREE separate inserts of groups of photographs that the publisher DID NOT include in this digital edition!!!
And I'm equally disappointed that Apple has the audacity to sell it through iTunes and neglects to mention that this is NOT the complete book - but a watered-down version of it instead!! Obviously . . . There are no returns for electronic media . . . so now I'm stuck with this . . . I could have bought the print edition for a few dollars more and been assured that I purchased the WHOLE book.
A thoroughly dissatisfied and disgusted customer!!! BUYER BEWARE OF THIS PRACTICE IN EBOOK PUBLISHING!!