Claire Tomalin's shocking and enlightening biography of Charles Dickens

Charles Dickens: A Life by Claire Tomalin
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

Charles Dickens was a monster. I know, he spent enormous amounts of time and energy raising money for charitable causes. I know, he was sympathetic to the poor, demonstrated their plight in his books, and fought for social reform. I know, he was the most popular writer of the 19th century and his books are still read today, in part because of the vivid caricatures, those children of his fertile imagination.

But his ego was monumental. He was selfish on a scale hard to imagine, he was sarcastic about people who had done him no harm. He was almost unbelievably cruel to his wife, abandoning her after 20 years of marriage, 10 children, and at least two miscarriages, primarily because he fell in love with an 18-year old girl and his wife, was, not surprisingly, after all those children, growing fat. He was angry at her for having so many children - his sudden hatred for her was that irrational. 

He spread lies about her so fantastic most people were embarrassed for him. But if, like Thackeray, his publishers, and other formerly very close friends did not back him entirely he cut them off. His daughters were instructed to cease being friends with Thackeray's daughters and never to speak to their maternal grandmother again. At a time when he was making 10,000 to 12,000 pounds a year he offered his wife 400 pounds a year in alimony. He hired a doctor to declare her of unsound mind. The doctor would have none of it. Mrs Dickens quietly did as he asked and moved out of their house, making little complaint and maintaining her dignity. She was a lady.

Dickens was no gentleman. He dressed like the 19th century equivalent of a used car salesman and his word was about as good. He broke contracts with his various publishers many times in order to get more money. He lied with facility, verbally and in print, all his life.

His sentimentality knew no bounds. When he was writing about the death of Little Nell he worked himself into a tempestuous emotional state, demanding sympathy from all his friends. When the three-year-old daughter of one of those men died and another of Dickens' friends spent days consoling the bereaved father, Dickens wrote that he found this excessive.

Claire Tomalin has done a splendid job of presenting this larger-than-life character with all his strengths and his many horrifying weaknesses. Often a biographer will fall in love with her character and excuse behavior that is inexcusable. Tomalin does not do that. She is as fair to Dickens as it's possible to be and she evaluates his work with great skill and perception. (meaning she agrees with me about which books are great and which are laughably bad.)

2012 No 7

Comments

[Mary]

Disclaimer: I am a member of the Trollope Society.

[Kimberly Wold]

I am about a third of the way through this book and so far am pleased with Tomalin's writing.

Years ago, my sister and I visited Dicken's London house when the docent mentioned very casually that one day Diken's stopped talking to his wife abandoning her which left her broken hearted. We were stunned. I've always wanted to know the rest of the story.

[Mary]

Kimberly, when Tomalin describes what he did - and tried to do to his wife, like have her committed as insane - she says "we want to avert our eyes." He was apparently charming and certainly entertaining but he was despicable in his private life.

[ChrisCross53]

Mary, I've just finished this excellent biog, and I like your review, and agree with what you say. Have you read Tomalin's earlier book, The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens? Obviously, some material has been duplicated in the new biog,but it also shows just how cruel and duplicitous Dickens could be. I read this before the Dickens biog, and was shocked to discover how much of his popular image - the loving family man etc - is just a myth.

[Mary]

Chris, I saw the references in this book to Tomalin's earlier biography of Nelly Ternan and I'm tempted to read it. Like you, I was shocked to find what a despicable man Dickens was.

I like your blog.

[Elaine Simpson-Long]

I have read and reviewed this book

http://randomjottings.typepad.com/random_jottings_of_an_ope/2011/10/charles-dickens-claire-tomalin.html

In it you will see that I am forgiving of Dicken's behaviour, not because I can find reasons for his being so awful, but because I think he suffered for the rest of his life because of what he had done. He knew he had behaved badly, he knew he had been, as you say A Monster, and Ithink it ate away at him for the rest of his life and he was never truly happy again. I believe this is what brought on his seizure and early death. I suppose I find it difficult to really hate a man who wrote Copperfield and Bleak House, not that I should feel this way at all really.

[Mary]

You are almost undoubtedly right, Elaine, when you say Dickens worked himself to death in his frantic late years when he was constantly travelling and reading from his work.

Your review, by the way, is the best I've read anywhere and is the reason I bought the book.

[Elaine Simpson-Long]

I posted a comment here yesterday but it seems to have vanished, it merely said thank you Mary for your compliment on my review of the Tomalin.

I have just finished re-reading Great Expectations after a gap of about 40 years and it was simply tremendous and will be writing about it soon.

[Mary]

I'm planning to read Great Expectations soon so I'm eager to read your review, Elaine.