Charles Dickens

Front Cover
Yale University Press, Jan 1, 2009 - Biography & Autobiography - 696 pages
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 novelists in the languag
 

Contents

from Portsmouth to Chatham 18121822
1
London 18221827
14
3 The Copperfield days 18281835
31
4 Breakthrough year 1836
59
5 Editing Bentleys Magazine 18361837
85
6 Periodicals into novels 18371839
110
7 The Master Humphrey experiment 18401841
140
8 America brought to book 1842
175
17 Writing Little Dorrit among other things 18551857
387
performing The Frozen Deep and finishing Little Dorrit 1857
416
19 Writing off a marriage 18571858
432
the public readings 1858
461
writing for All the Year Round 18591861
469
22 Christmas numbers public readings and uncommercial travels 18611863
498
writing Our Mutual Friend 18641865
521
24 Last Christmas numbers 18651867
545

England Italy England 18421845
207
daily nooses and the noose itself 1846
241
11 Dombey and other dealings 18461848
254
12 From Dombey to Copperfield 18481849
275
writing David Copperfield and beginning Household Words 18491850
289
14 The year of the Guild 18501851
319
15 Writing Bleak House 18521853
340
16 Writing For These Times 18531854
363
25 Writing and reading for America 18671868
561
26 Disappearances and deaths 18681870
585
27 Charles Dickenss explanations
615
Abbreviations and select bibliography
624
Notes
627
Index
671
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