Now where do I start with this simply stunning book? All a bit daunting to try and write something coherent and sensible on such a subject as Charles Dickens when he has been written about with such detail, love and a simply overhwelming volume of information. But as I was cheeky enough to ring Yale UP and ask for a copy and they graciously sent me one and trust me to read and review, I have to repay that trust (and the trust that other publishers place in me as well) to do the very best I can.
So here goes.
The first thing to say is that the full title of this biography is Charles Dickens: a life defined by writing and this is the main thrust of Michael Slater's book. His personal life, his marriage, his separation from his wife, his children and his later love, Nellie Ternan, though appearing in the narrative are kept pretty much in the background and are only mentioned in relation to his writing and his state of mind at any particular moment - this biography concentrates on Dickens the author. There are other excellent biographies of Dickens which explore the, for want of a better phrase, his 'love life' and the lack of lurid information in this particular book did not worry me - I know I can find details elsewhere.
No, as I said this is all about Dickens the author and my goodness me - half way through this book I was simply breathless at the sheer scale of his output. No laptops, no dictaphones, just pen and ink (did he ever suffer from what we now call RSI- surely he must have done) and an abundance of drive and energy. We all know that Dickens wrote his novels in serial form to a deadline for the eagerly awaiting readers who rushed out in their thousands to buy the latest edition of The Old Curiosity Shop, Dombey and Son and all those well known works that we only know and read in book form. The pressure was immense because as well as producing these instalments, often on a weekly as well as a monthly basis, he was quite often involved in the editing and production of the particular magazine and also wrote articles on a regular basis. Two of his most well known journals were Household Words and All the Year Round and, as stated, as well as being editor and contributor he had to find copy and stories from other authors and writers as well. Wilkie Collins was a particularly close friend and The Woman in White and The Moonstone were just two of his well known works that were first brought to the attention of the public in one of these magazines. Mrs Gaskell another. (Hesperus books have reprinted some of these and are well worth getting hold of). A Christmas Carol was such a huge success that a Dickens for Christmas then became the norm so the special edition had to be produced and prepared often months in advance and all while Dickens was planning and writing the next novel. At one stage he was writing instalments of the Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist at the same time.
Michael Slater goes into great detail about Dickens and his constant campaigning and writing of letters to newspapers and his speeches regarding the dreadful conditions in which the very poor lived, using his fame and writing skills to call attention to their fate:
"Rather than writing weighty pieces for the quarterlies, it better suited his talent for being a skirmisher and sharpshooter' (Macauley's phrase), to write a letter to the Morning Chronicle or to contribute anonymous polemical pieces to The Examiner. And in the autumn of 1843 he was to discover in A Christmas Carol a form of fictional writing, unique to himself, that was infinitely more effective for social propagandist purposes, more of a 'hammer blow', to use a favourable metaphor of his than any journalistic article or pamphlet could conceivably have been"
Dickens put his money where his mouth was as well and one of his famous philanthropic friends and colleagues was Angela Burdett-Coutts. He gave a huge amount of his time, and money, to the establishment of a home for 'starving needlewomen of good character, violent girls committed to prison for disturbances in ill conducted workhouses....destitute girls, domestic servants who have been seduced...' The House was called Urania Cottage and this particular aspect of Dicken's life has recently been written about in The House of Fallen Women by Jenny Hartley (on my wish list).
If the above was not enough, he was also supporting various members of his extended family who all depended upon him as the breadwinner; supporting poverty stricken young authors and writers; endless correspondence with these same struggling writers; taking part in theatrical performances in public theatres (also giving a private performance for Victoria and Albert) and managing also to father some ten children. Just reading of his output made me feel tired and it is hardly surprising that Dickens died relatively young as his nervous and febrile energy must have been total and exhausting.
The little that is written here of his private life does not make for particularly pleasant reading. He and Catherine Hogarth married young and she seemed to spend most of their married life either miscarrying or producing children, some of whom survived, some did not. By all accounts she seems to have been a good wife and hostess and there is little hint of any marital problems until Dickens met and became infatuated with Nelly Ternan, a young actress. He then behaved towards Catherine in a most unpleasant and cruel manner, brutally cutting her out of his life and separating from her. She is a shadowy figure in this biography and I have to say, I found myself very sympathetic towards her. Being married to somebody like Charles Dickens would not have been an easy ride.
Catherine kept every letter he wrote to her and 'when dying asked her younger daughter to deposit them in the British Museum 'that the world may know he loved me once'. I found this sentence unutterably sad and also found it rather hard to forgive Dickens his treatment of her.
But, of course, in the end our feelings towards Charles Dickens are shaped by his writing. We know that our heroes often have feet of clay and, whether this is fair or not, we do tend to forgive behaviour in somebody of Dicken's stature more than we would an ordinary mortal. HIs shortcomings as a husband and his callous behavior have to be set in the context of the support, as mentioned earlier in this post, of a huge extended family, his care and thoughtfulness to fellow authors (though he did fall out with Thackeray over his behaviour at the time of his marital failure), his never ending campaigning and zeal for the amelioration of the plight of the poor, his railing against injustice and hypocrisy and many other deeds of kindness. I am not saying this makes his behavior forgiveable but it leavens it somewhat. Rather difficult to think badly of the creator of Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, Mr Pickwick, Sam Weller, Tiny Tim and Little Nell no matter how much one would like to.
Dickens has given me hours and hours of glorious and happy reading and he is one of my favourite authors. I was introduced to David Copperfield when I was about twelve years old and remember a children's edition of this tale being given to me which ended with David being taken in by Aunt Betsy Trotwood and being sent to school and all seemed to have a happy and contented ending. I loved it but thought that was it until a year or so later when my English teacher told me Oh no, Elaine there is much more to read and I rushed out and got a copy of the full novel and read and was enthralled. Much though I love Copperfield I view Bleak House as one of the greatest of all Victorian, or indeed of any age, novels ever written, and his masterpiece. The opening page of this work is unforgettable:
"London. Michaelmas Term lately over and the Lord Chancellor sitting in Lincoln's Inn Hall. Implacable November weather..........For everywhere. Fog up the river, where it flows among green aits and meadows; fog down the river, where it rolls defiled among the tiers of shipping....fog on the Essex marshes, fog on the Kentish heights; ..fog in the eyes and throats of ancient Greenwich pensioners wheezing by the firesides of their wards...."
Superb.
I have merely skimmed the surface of Michael Slater's book and cannot feel that I have done it justice or in any way given you an idea of the scope, depth and breadth of the research which has gone into the production of this biography, nor of his obvious love and admiration for Dickens the writer. Michael Slater had access to the Dickens House Museum resources and was the co-editor of Charles Dickens collected journalism so to say he knows his stuff is putting it mildy. This is evidenced in the detail of the writing.
It was not until after his death when John Forster's biography of Dickens was published that his public knew of his childhood and his own close knowledge of being poor with a divided family, a father in debtor's prison and the deep abiding suffering and humiliation that he felt when he was working in a blacking factory, alone and neglected. Forster's representation of his close friend portrayed him as 'wonderfully humane and extraordinary man who had been badly treated as a child by his parents and how had been unlucky in love and suffered much from an unhappy marriage'. It was not until the mid-1930's when revelations about the Ternan connection began to become known that a a 'darker, more turbulent and altogether more complex figure began to emerge'
But as Michael Slater says in his final paragraph 'that is another story'.
Absolutely stunning book and I cannot see that any future biography of Dickens will better this one. Wonderful wonderful wonderful.
