Claire Tomalin has a new biography out on Charles Dickens. After reading Michael Slater's magnificent biography last year, reviewed here, I did wonder if anything more could be said about him, but Dickens is a source of endless fascination to biographers and, as the Slater biography concentrated more on his literary rather than his private life, then I am sure there will be more to be said. I shall be laying my hands on a copy as soon as I can as I am a huge admirer of Tomalin's writing.
In the latest edition of Slightly Foxed Ranjit Bolt writes about Tomalin's early biography of Nelly Ternan, Dicken's secret mistress in an essay he has called A Prisoner of her Time.
"Mrs Frances Ternan and her three daughters,Fanny, Maria and Nelly (all actresses) were women of good character. That is, in Nelly’s case, until Dickens arrived on the scene.
It was not a glamorous life. "The Ternan girls and their mother worked like slaves. Often they would have to tramp home from a long stint at the theatre to dingy lodgings, late at night, through the ill-lit and rat-infested streets of London, Newcastle, Liverpool or wherever, braving the lecherous scrutiny, if not the attentions, of dissolute swells. But if there was less glamour and fewer shenanigans than the Victorian public imagined, there was a warmth, a solidarity, a sense of the company being a surrogate family (as there still is among the members of theatre companies today) which Claire Tomalin evokes with great tenderness and a marvellous flair for conjuring up atmosphere"
The title of Tomalin's ealier book is The Invisible Woman. Dickens kept Nelly well hidden away and moved heaven and earth to make sure that her identity was kept close and that nobody knew that she was his mistress.
"....one cannot but take deep exception to the double standards he showed in his treatment of Nelly. The spotless morality of his novels is in stark contrast to that of his private life, and his obsessive secrecy in his conduct of the affair has more than a touch of the sordid about it"
Dickens treated his wife and family pretty badly and poor Nelly did not seem to get much joy out of her relationship. "As for Nelly, her main job seems to have been to maximize the great man’s pleasure, while leaving his public image intact – a conjuring trick he pulled off with as much dexterity as he must have used in the magic he performed to entertain his children"
I have made the point before and know I will again, that it is difficult sometimes to separate the author from his/her writing and personal feelings can change the reader's viewpoint. It happened recently when I read a biography of P G Wodehouse, reviewed a few weeks ago, leaving me feeling not so fond of him as I thought I was. A biography of Daphne du Maurier a few years ago made me feel the same. Last year when I read the Slater book on Dickens I realised that for all his genius and brilliance, his good works, his supporting of his friends etc etc, he could be a rather mean little person. I swiftly put this away because he is the creator of such a wonderful array of characters and I love his books so much. Not sure I would feel so forgiving if I did not care for his writing. I know we should not expect our heroes to be perfect, why should they be, we are not, but sometimes this feeling of disappointment does creep in and in his dealings with Nelly Dickens showed himself at his most cowardly in keeping his liaison with her secret.
"Nelly’s existence as a key part of Dickens’s life could no more be acknowledged than the fact that, in the years before he met her, while he created his sugary heroines by day, by night he prowled the streets of Margate in search of what he called ‘delights’"
It was only in Victorian England that Dickens would behave in this way. He visited Paris regularly and I don't suppose he spent most of his time climbing the Eiffel Tower. Abroad, free from the constraints of home, he could probably be freer with less chance of discovery.
"Perhaps the most poignant aspect of the book is the feeling it gives of how much Nelly was a prisoner of her time and her society. As Claire Tomalin observes, had Dickens been a French literary icon instead of an English one, she might well have held her head high as the mistress of a great man. After Dickens’s death, she felt obliged to keep the relationship still hidden from the world, though threats of disclosure dogged her. Today she would surely have had her memoirs ready for publication. As Claire Tomalin puts it, ‘Poor Nelly, she was not to know that fashions in sin can change as much as other fashions.’"
This is a spot on essay and I hope will make you read The Invisible Woman. It is beautifully written and I have a real personal interest in this book as I will explain:
In 1869 Dickens was giving a reading in Hull and he went into a leading silk merchants in the city to buy six pairs of ladies silk stockings (presumably for Nelly).The assistant who served him did not recognise him and Dickens asked him what he liked to do in his spare time and receiving the answer that he enjoyed reading Dickens, and showing his familiarity with the novels, was presented with a single ticket for that evening's reading 'at which stage the young draper realised who his customer was'.
That evening when the draper attended the concert he found his seat was on the platform close to the reading desk from which Dickens delivered his reading. During his performance the novelist kept turning round to see how the young man was enjoying himself, and 'purposefully chose passages from the young man's favourite books'
And the name of the young draper? - Edward Simpson-Long my great-great-great-great (not sure how many greats) grandfather........
