Product Description

From a bitter childhood mired in poverty and hard work to a career as the most acclaimed and best loved writer in the English-speaking world, Charles Dickens had a life as tumultuous as any he created in his teeming novels of life in Victorian England. And no one has captured the rich texture of his life as colorfully and persuasively as Fred Kaplan in this acclaimed biography. 107 illustrations.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #280106 in Books
• Published on: 1998-09-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 640 pages

From Publishers Weekly
"This first major biography of Dickens in nearly 40 years is a winning mix of insight, narrative skill and shrewd judgment," commended PW. As limned here, "Dickens was convivial, loyal, secretive and arrogant, with a 'performance personality' that required applause for self-definition." Photos.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
This volume received kudos from many reviewers, including LJ's who asserted that it would be "important to Dickens scholars while accessible to the general public" (LJ 9/1/88). This edition contains a new update by the author, so if your existing copy has seen the worst of times, replace it with this one.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Fred Kaplan is the author of Miracles of Rare Devices, Dickens and Mesmerism, Thomas Carlyle, A Biography (nominated for the 1983 National Book Critics Circle Award and a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize), Sacred Tears, and Henry James: A Biography, and is the editor of Charles Dickens' Book of Memoranda. A past recipient of Guggenheim and NEH Fellowships, he has also served as editor of the Dickens Studies Annual.

Customer Reviews

Great Bio of a Great Author
Charles Dickens is without a doubt one of my favorite authors. I have read all of his major novels (some numerous times) and many of his other works. The most important things to know about Dickens are right there in his own words. However, the man himself is a fascinating subject from his rise through a poor youth to his triumph as the most famous authors of his age or, indeed, any age. Certainly, Dickens is worthy of a well-written biography. Fortunately, there are well-done ones out there.

I had read Kaplan's book a number of years ago and recently read it again. It remains one of the best. Kaplan gives us a complete and balanced portrait of Dickens' entire life. He is sufficiently laudatory of Dickens' successes without being fawning. Additionally, he is not afraid to point out Dickens' weaknesses--as a son, husband, father, friend and author, though his weaknesses as a author are few enough. We get a real sense of Dickens as a human being.

One of the reasons I think Kaplan is so successful in his portrait is that he weaves numerous quotes from letters by Dickens and his many correspondents almost seamlessly into the text. It gives more of a feeling for Dickens as a man of his time as opposed to looking back and trying to compose a modern view of him. I also like the way Kaplan shows Dickens as an acute observer who integrated people and places he knew into his fiction. There are risks in reading a novel too biographically but it is interesting to try to pin down an author's inspirations and themes. Kaplan handles this quite well but he doesn't go into any of the novels in depth so someone unfamiliar with Dickens' books might have trouble in some places.

Overall, Kaplan finds an nice balance between depth and readability. He is able to pack a lot into 556 pages. Anyone with an interest in Dickens would be foolish not to read one of the best biographies of the man in print.

Well-written, well-researched, scholarly work
The key word is "scholarly." If you want the run-of-the-mill pulp bio, you won't find it here. What you will find is a treasure of information on Dickens and his life. I have read every major biography of Dickens, and Kaplan's work is by far the best. I don't know how others could call it "boring," for I couldn't put it down. If you need your biographies "punched up," perhaps you should try Ackroyd's bio, which is more colorful but also more rambling. This is solid work, from a solid researcher.

out of focus
Strange and unsatisfying biography, focused on minutae of Dickens' vacations to the exclusion of his literature.

"From Rome, they went to Siena and then Florence, happy to have had only three days of rain. On the road, they carried their own brandy, cloves, and tea" [page. 297-8]. The moment-to-moment of this trip fills ten pages, including so much emphasis re the facial grooming habits of the three men concerned, and the qualities of the various beds they slept in, that it's tempting to describe the text as voyeuristic. Follwed by just three pages re Bleak House, perhaps Dickens' most adventurous and anomalous work (two narrators). To me, a quirky choice of priorities, at best.

Perhaps the intention of the author was to present "the human side of Dickens" as a supplement to the literary biographies which already exist. If so, a more appropriate title might be "Not By Literature Alone", or etc. Readers interested in Dickens' writing as opposed to his leisure might want to look elsewhere.