Charles Dickens - Hardcover

Michael Slater

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0300112076 ISBN 13: 9780300112078

Publisher: Yale University Press, 2009

Synopsis

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 language.

About this title

Review:

'No living person is a greater authority on the life and works of Charles Dickens than Michael Slater.' --Claire Tomalin (05/11/2009)

'...it is a triumph of compression... immediately takes its place as the most authoritative, fair-minded and navigable of modern biographies... Slater, the most distinguished of modern Dickens scholars, is master of detail...' --John Bowen, Times Literary Supplement, 16 October, 2009

About the Author:

Michael Slater is Emeritus Professor of Victorian Literature at Birkbeck College, University of London, past President of the International Dickens Fellowship and of the Dickens Society of America, and former editor of the journal 'The Dickensian'. He has taught and continues to lecture widely in the USA, across Europe, Australasia and the Far East.

About this edition

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0300112076
• ISBN 13: 9780300112078
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 720