Dickens: A Biography

By Fred Kaplan

Book Overview

Named a notable book of the year by the New York Times and one of best biographies of 1988 by Publishers Weekly

From a bitter childhood mired in poverty and hard work to a career as the most acclaimed and best-loved writer in the English-speaking world, Charles Dickens had a life as tumultuous as any he created in his teeming novels of life in Victorian England. And no one has captured the rich texture of this life as colorfully and persuasively as Fred Kaplan in this acclaimed biography. Drawing on unpublished and long-forgotten sources, Kaplan presents a full-scale portrait of Dickens and his world. From the autobiographical basis of his novels and his extraordinary circle of friends to the course of his unhappy marriage and complicated family relations, Kaplan reveals the restless compulsions, private passions, and professional concerns that drove Dickens to unprecedented literary success. Kaplan details Dickens's often stormy dealings with his publishers and his carefully cultivated relationship with readers, heightened through amateur theatricals and numerous public readings in Britain and North America.

Brilliantly written and thoroughly researched, Dickens provides an absorbing and perceptive account of its subject as a singularly complex man and a consummate artist, offering readers new insights into Dickens's--and literature's--greatest works, works such as Bleak House, David Copperfield, Great Expectations, and Oliver Twist.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0801860180
• ISBN13: 9780801860188
• Release Date: November 1998
• Publisher: Johns Hopkins University Press
• Length: 640 Pages
• Weight: 1.85 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.6" x 6.0" x 9.1"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

All You Need to Know

All you need to know about Charles Dickens is here. Fred Kaplan has given us a well-rounded look at the literary lion in his natural habitat. What more could we ask for, except to savor - anew or again - another of Boz's novels? We appreciate Dickens because he loves all of his characters so completely - even the most irredeemable ones. With Kaplan's book, we find that Dickens himself is one of his best creations.

Well-written, well-researched, scholarly work

The key word is "scholarly." If you want the run-of-the-mill pulp bio, you won't find it here. What you will find is a treasure of information on Dickens and his life. I have read every major biography of Dickens, and Kaplan's work is by far the best. I don't know how others could call it "boring," for I couldn't put it down. If you need your biographies "punched up," perhaps you should try Ackroyd's bio, which is more colorful but also more rambling. This is solid work, from a solid researcher.

Great Bio of a Great Author

Charles Dickens is without a doubt one of my favorite authors. I have read all of his major novels (some numerous times) and many of his other works. The most important things to know about Dickens are right there in his own words. However, the man himself is a fascinating subject from his rise through a poor youth to his triumph as the most famous authors of his age or, indeed, any age. Certainly, Dickens is worthy of a well-written biography. Fortunately, there are well-done ones out there.I had read Kaplan's book a number of years ago and recently read it again. It remains one of the best. Kaplan gives us a complete and balanced portrait of Dickens' entire life. He is sufficiently laudatory of Dickens' successes without being fawning. Additionally, he is not afraid to point out Dickens' weaknesses--as a son, husband, father, friend and author, though his weaknesses as a author are few enough. We get a real sense of Dickens as a human being.One of the reasons I think Kaplan is so successful in his portrait is that he weaves numerous quotes from letters by Dickens and his many correspondents almost seamlessly into the text. It gives more of a feeling for Dickens as a man of his time as opposed to looking back and trying to compose a modern view of him. I also like the way Kaplan shows Dickens as an acute observer who integrated people and places he knew into his fiction. There are risks in reading a novel too biographically but it is interesting to try to pin down an author's inspirations and themes. Kaplan handles this quite well but he doesn't go into any of the novels in depth so someone unfamiliar with Dickens' books might have trouble in some places.Overall, Kaplan finds an nice balance between depth and readability. He is able to pack a lot into 556 pages. Anyone with an interest in Dickens would be foolish not to read one of the best biographies of the man in print.

A very fine biography of the geatest English novelist

I have just finished reading Mr. Kaplan's biography of Dickens. I have been reading a number of Dickens' novels, and decided that reading a biography of this master of the novel would provide more insight into what made Dickens write such wonderful books. Mr. Kaplan has set forth a full scholarly account of Dickens, as the extensive notes attest to. I was most struck by Dickens' phenomenal energy in writing all those novels, doing public readings, walking miles a day, and raising a family of eight children! Dickens' relationship with women was also very interesting. Dickens had a strained relationships with his mother, wife and an early love, Maria Beadwell. These relationships reappear in his writings. He also had very close sister/wife relationships with two of his sister-in-laws and his daughters. Although it may never be fully understood why Dickens separated from his wife Catherine after 23 years of marriage, Mr. Kaplan does a fairly good job of explaining this situation.One is impressed by Dickens' energy, his flair for the theatrical and his overwhelming genius. This biography does a very good job of painting a portrait of Charles Dickens the man and his many activities. Towards the end of the biography, there are times when Mr. Kaplan cronologically jumps and repeats certain events out of sequence. This, and several photos from 1865 labled as 1845 are about the only faults in this very well executed biography.