Overview

A lively and insightful biographical celebration of the imaginative genius of Charles Dickens, published in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of his death. Charles Dickens was a superb public performer, a great orator and one of the most famous of the Eminent Victorians. Slight of build, with a frenzied, hyper-energetic personality, Dickens looked much older than his fifty-eight years when he died--an occasion marked by a crowded funeral at Westminster Abbey, despite his waking wishes for a small affair. Experiencing the worst and best of life during the Victorian Age, Dickens was not merely the conduit through whom some of the most beloved characters in literature came into the world. He was one of them. Filled with the twists, pathos, and unusual characters that sprang from this novelist's extraordinary imagination, The Mystery of Charles Dickens looks back from the legendary writer's death to recall the key events in his life. In doing so, he seeks to understand Dickens' creative genius and enduring popularity. Following his life from cradle to grave, it becomes clear that Dickens's fiction drew from his life--a fact he acknowledged. Like Oliver Twist, Dickens suffered a wretched childhood, then grew up to become not only a respectable gentleman but an artist of prodigious popularity. Dickens knew firsthand the poverty and pain his characters endured, including the scandal of a failed marriage. Going beyond standard narrative biography, A. N. Wilson brilliantly revisits the wellspring of Dickens's vast and wild imagination, to reveal at long last why his novels captured the hearts of nineteenth century readers--and why they continue to resonate today.

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9781094168777

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Reviews

Blend[s] perceptive analysis of the novels with parallel experiences in Dickens' life...Beyond the eye-opening analysis, Wilson also offers a moving personal account of why Dickens has meant so much to him. -- Booklist (starred review) [An] utterly satisfying investigative narrative...Wilson fully comprehends the many complexities of the wily novelist, public performer, and secret lover...Wilson writes with precision, intuition, and enormous compassion for Dickens' senses of social justice and outrage, especially regarding children in the mercilessly materialist Victorian era...A marvelous exploration by an author steeped in the craft of his subject's elastic, elusive work. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

[An] utterly satisfying investigative narrative...Wilson fully comprehends the many complexities of the wily novelist, public performer, and secret lover...Wilson writes with precision, intuition, and enormous compassion for Dickens' senses of social justice and outrage, especially regarding children in the mercilessly materialist Victorian era...A marvelous exploration by an author steeped in the craft of his subject's elastic, elusive work. -- Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Blend[s] perceptive analysis of the novels with parallel experiences in Dickens' life...Beyond the eye-opening analysis, Wilson also offers a moving personal account of why Dickens has meant so much to him. -- Booklist (starred review)

Author Information

A. N. Wilson, a renowned British journalist and author, grew up in Staffordshire, England, and was educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he is a prolific and award-winning biographer and celebrated novelist. He taught for seven years at Oxford and is a frequent contributor to the London Daily Mail, Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman, Spectator, and Observer. Mark Meadows can be heard on BBC radio and seen on television as Reverend Wallace in EastEnders.

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