Winner of the Plutarch Award for Best Biography A lively and insightful biographical celebration of the imaginative genius of Charles Dickens, published in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of his death.
The Mystery of Charles Dickens is illustrated with 30 black-and-white images..
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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Going beyond standard narrative biography, A.
Dickens knew firsthand the poverty and pain his characters endured, including the scandal of a failed marriage.
Like Oliver Twist, Dickens suffered a wretched childhood, then grew up to become not only a respectable gentleman but an artist of prodigious popularity.
Following his life from cradle to grave, it becomes clear that Dickens\'s fiction drew from his life--a fact he acknowledged.
In doing so, he seeks to understand Dickens\' creative genius and enduring popularity.
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.
He was one of them.
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.
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.
Charles Dickens was a superb public performer, a great orator and one of the most famous of the Eminent Victorians.
Winner of the Plutarch Award for Best Biography A lively and insightful biographical celebration of the imaginative genius of Charles Dickens, published in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of his death