Charles Dickens

This long-awaited biography, twenty years after the last major account, uncovers Dickens the man through the profession in which he excelled. Drawing on a lifetime's study of this prodigiously brilliant figure, Michael Slater explores the personal and emotional life, the high-profile public activities, the relentless travel, the charitable works, the amateur theatricals and the astonishing productivity. But the core focus is Dickens' career as a writer and professional author, covering not only his big novels but also his phenomenal output of other writing - letters, journalism, shorter fiction, plays, verses, essays, writings for children, travel books, speeches, and scripts for his public readings, and the relationships among them. Slater's account, rooted in deep research but written with affection, clarity, and economy, illuminates the context of each of the great novels while locating the life of the author within the imagination that created them. It highlights Dickens' boundless energy, his passion for order and fascination with disorder, his organizational genius, his deep concern for the poor and outrage at indifference towards them, his susceptibility towards young women, his love of Christmas and fairy tales, and his hatred of tyranny. Richly and precisely illustrated with many rare images, this masterly work on the complete Dickens, man and writer, becomes the indispensable guide and companion to one of the greatest novelist.

ISBN 0300112076   Pages 720 ISBN13 9780300112078 (What's this?)   Volumes 1 Publisher Yale University Press   Weight (grammes) 1193 Imprint Yale University Press   Published in New Haven Format Hardback   Height (mm) 234 Publication date 25 Aug 2009   Width (mm) 156 DEWEY 823.8   Spine width (mm) 45 DEWEY edition DC22   Academic level General

		List of illustrations in the text
		List of plates
		Note on monetary values
1		Early years: from Portsmouth to Chatham, 1812-1822		1
2		Early years: London, 1822-1827		14
3		'The Copperfield days', 1828-1835		31
4		Break-through year, 1836		59
5		Editing Bentley's Magazine, 1836-1837		85
6		Periodicals into novels, 1837-1839		110
7		The Master Humphrey experimen t, 1840-1841		140
8		America brought to book, 1842		175
9		'The turning-point of his career': England, Italy, England, 1842-1845		207
10		An interlude: 'daily nooses' and the noose itself, 1846		241
11		Dombey and other dealings, 1846-1848		254
12		From Dombey to Copperfield, 1848-1849		275
13		Interweaving and conducting: writing David Copperfield and beginning Household Words, 1849-1850		289
14		The year of the Guild, 1850-1851		319
15		Writing Bleak House, 1852-1853		340
16		Writing 'For These Times', 1853-1854		363
17		Writing Little Dorrit - among other things, 1855-1857		387
18		Drama and denouement: performing The Frozen Deep and finishing Little Dorrit, 1857		416
19		Writing off a marriage, 1857-1858		432
20		Stories into scripts: the public readings, 1858		461
21		Serials, series and stories: writing for All the Year Round, 1859-1861		469
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"Michael Slater''s wonderfully detailed biography of Charles Dickens has rig--Holly Furneaux "Victorian Studies "

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