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Charles Dickens

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Any general reader in search of a single volume covering the life and work of Charles Dickens needs to look no further than this publication. Michael Slater has written a grandiose account that considers the author from several different perspectives. Both his public and his private personae are examined in detail, revealing his social consciousness as well as things that irritated him such as female emancipation. Slater goes on to describe the interaction that provided the genesis for Dickens's work before focusing in a comprehensive manner on its evolution. The stories, essays and sketches are examined in the context of their influence on the more substantial works, the novels. Charles Dickens: A Life Defined in Writing is an intelligent portrait of a man in his element; affable yet businesslike, energetic, considerate, unbelievably imaginative and, most of all, obsessively dedicated to the profession of writing.

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) the Victorian literary genius has been blessed by many outstanding biographers. These authors include his friend John Forster and such modern biographers as Fred Kaplan and Peter Acyroyd. Now a new excellent Dickens biography has been added to the lister. Dr. Michael Slater, emeritus professor of Victorian Literature at the University of London has produced a massive biography of Boz which stretches to 623 small print pages. The book is well illustrated with period drawings and photographs and is an excellent work for 21st century readers who may or may not be familiar with the king of the three decker and periodical Victorian novel.
What sets this biography apart from the rest?
1. Slater focuses on brief but cogent exegesis of the major novels and fictional work done by Dickens from his Sketches by Boz to his final unfinished novel The Mystery of Edwin Drood. Slater does a great job of explaining the major themes of such classics as Oliver Twist; Barnaby Rudge; Nicholas Nickleby; Dombey and Sons; David Copperfield; Bleak House; Little Dorrit; Martin Chuzzelwit; Great Expectations; Our Mutual Friend; A Tale of Two Cities and Dickens first smasheroo bestseller "Pickwick Papers."
2. Slater also reviews Dickens career as an editorial genius of his periodicals "Household Words" and "All the Year Round" as well as "Master Humphrey's Clock" which he edited in his young adulthood. Slater introduces us to many fictional short pieces Dickens wrote for these journals.
3. Slater discusses in details the Christmas books produced by Dickens from "A Christmas Carol" of 1843 to such further stories as The Chimes, The Battle of Life, The Cricket on the Hearth and The Bells.
4. Dickens as a professional writer is the chief focus of this book but Slater provides all the biographical information a curious modern reader would wish to know about Boz. We learn of Dickens concerns for social justice, reform of the legal and judicial system and his concern for the elderly, ingnorant and poor masses. We also learn of his separation from his wife Catherine in 1858 and his long affair with actress Ellen "Nelly" Ternan which continued until his early death in 1870.
Dickens was a complex blend of kindness and cruelty; hypocrisy and geniune concern for the downtrodden. He treated his wife in a horrible manner by divorcing her; was a so-so father to his ten children and could be rude and vindictive. He could also be kind reaching out to help friends in need. Dickens was a huge blast of energetic restlessness; he walked several miles each day and night; knew London better than anyone else in the Victorian age and was a liberal in politics and religion (he left the Church of England to become a Unitarian).
Dickens had to serve in a degrading position in a blacking factory; was denied higher education and did not care for his mother. Dickens did love his feckless Micawberish father John. Charles Dickens was a born actor producing many amateur theatricals throughout his life. His grinding speaking tours in the United Kingdom and United States wore him down and probably greatly contributed to his early demise.
Charles Dickens remains this reviewer's favorite novelist. Take him for what he was worth Mr. Dickens was a writer of genius burdened with human faults. Michael Slater has written a powerful study of Dickens which deserves to be widely read.

Charles Dickens is one of those towering figures who needs a new biography every few years. He was a many-sided man, a kind of living literary institution in his own right. Scholars are still having a hard time pinning him down as the 200th anniversary of his birth looms in 2012.

British Dickens expert Michael Slater has produced a massively researched and closely reasoned appraisal of Dickens that presents him through the lens of his own words --- not only his 16 magnificent novels but the flood of short stories, magazine pieces, journalism, letters and speeches that poured unceasingly from his quill pen.

First of all, the book is a marvel of scholarly research. Slater has examined almost everything Dickens wrote and exposed connections that reflect Dickens's use and reuse of ideas, experiences and images in different settings throughout his whole body of work. It will be a revelation to those who know Dickens only through the novels. Slater has gone out of his way to relate those novels to lesser-known pieces and to plead the case for the centrality of those shorter pieces to any adequate assessment of the man and his life.

At the same time, the book takes full notice of all the central themes of the Dickens story: his passionate advocacy of relief for the poor, his disdain for most of the political institutions of his day, his concept of literature as a great and noble calling that requires hard work of anyone who wants to practice it, his colorful and turbulent personal life, and his passion for travel, or rather for what Slater calls "socially investigative sightseeing" --- visits to prisons, poorhouses and asylums that were not in the tourist guidebooks.

Dickens's concern for the poor led him to aim what he called "sledgehammer blows" at politicians or fatuous clergymen who ignored the problems he saw festering in the streets of London during the long nighttime walks he loved to take. It is no accident that in his novels very few if any lawyers or clergymen come off favorably.

Dickens was a control freak whose zeal for having things his way extended to criticism of the facial expressions in the illustrations for his books. In describing his famous involvement in elaborate amateur theatrical productions, Slater says again and again that Dickens was not happy unless he could control every detail of the show: casting, scenery, costumes, lighting, stage direction --- in short, the whole affair. Slater demonstrates that he was an obsessive organizer, a "born master of ceremonies."

Another major theme is Dickens's enormous capacity for work. He would be grinding out a major novel, editing a magazine, organizing a play production, and supervising the operation of a famous home for wayward girls --- all pretty much at the same time. In his early years, the writing of two novels would be going on at the same time --- he would finish up the last serial installments of one while getting started on the next and at the same time carrying on a volume of correspondence that he compared to that of "a secretary of state." Even his leisure hours were, in Slater's word, "strenuous."

Slater generally reserves his own critical judgments for the novels and stories. He is, however, candid (and critical) on Dickens's separation from his wife and on his late-in-life affair with actress Ellen Ternan. One major theme that he pretty much neglects is Dickens's shameful campaign to isolate his nine children from their mother after the separation. He concludes that no one can know for certain if Dickens and Ternan were sexually involved, and on the literary front he resists the temptation to offer a theory on how the unfinished THE MYSTERY OF EDWIN DROOD would conclude if its author had lived to tell us.

This book is the best overall treatment of the Charles Dickens phenomenon since Edgar Johnson's two-volume effort in the 1950s. Slater has taken full advantage of new Dickens material that has come to light since Johnson's day and produced a masterpiece.

--- Reviewed by Robert Finn (Robertfinn@aol.com)

This is an examination of the life of Charles Dickens mainly based from the books and the multitude of articles he wrote. As the author points out Dickens's life was writing. His written output was enormous - he wrote novels, he was a magazine editor and wrote numerous essays for other journals and newspapers. He often juggled all these activities simultaneously - sometimes meeting the deadlines, at other times extending the deadlines. In addition he was a charismatic public speaker and loved to recite his works (which he would re-edit to fit into the framework of his public performance). One needs also to understand that words for Dickens were a means to trigger active social change - his writings reflect the poor and the homeless - their living conditions were abominable. He constantly advocated the intervention of government in public hygiene and public education. He set up a centre for homeless women.

Dickens avidly explored his world - he knew the streets - the sights and sounds of London. He would often take walks of ten to fifteen miles - an enormous distance on foot. Unlike some writers today who seem sequestered in an inner world - Dickens went to the outer world to get his stories - in the teeming streets of London. Additionally the author shows us very well the creative method in action as we can feel the generative process at work in the stories of Dickens - the moulding of his characters and scenes is aptly demonstrated.

He was an ebullient personality and enjoyed being with people - he could be the centre of attention wherever he was. He was extremely popular during his lifetime and wanted to feel the love of his reading public. He connected emotionally with them through his public readings. When his books were released - by two to three chapters at a time - they were awaited upon enthusiastically by his audience; in very much the same way that people today await the next episode of a favourite TV show or concert performance. Dickens was the superstar of his era.

I learnt much of Dickens from this book, but there are some things that seem to be missing.

When his marriage dissolved (after having innumerable children - I lost count) his wife's sister, Georgina, continued to live in the Dickens household and looked after his children. This does appear rather odd, but the author offers no explanation. Dickens had a very clandestine affair with a young actress - but due to the "Victorian" nature of the times there are only coded references to the true nature of the relationship - the author speculates that she may have had a child from Dickens, but leaves it at that.

The author points out one episode in which Dickens was shocked by a painting of Millais - "Christ in the House of His Parents" and wrote disparagingly of it. By today's standards this painting is very innocuous. In later years Dickens and Millais became more amiable with each other (according to the art book I referenced).

The author also speaks admirably of all of Dickens works - I feel this should have been toned down or been more evaluative. He makes Dickens novels too equal in their intensity. What is also absent is a retrospective analysis of the works of Dickens through the ages. Why is it that most of us have heard (or even read) "David Copperfield" or a "Tale of Two Cities", but novels like "Barnaby Rudge" or "Bleak House" are much more obscure. I do find some of Dickens characters somewhat of a caricature and the woman tend to be overly angelic.

I also find this book giving substantial details of Dickens weekly activities - people encountered, articles written... this makes for lengthy reading, plus the print size in my hardcover edition is small.

Nevertheless I am prompted to re-read some of the Dickens I already have and to venture into the ones I have not. The author amply demonstrates, Dickens (aside from Shakespeare) is the supreme author in the Anglo-Saxon world. His stories resonate through the ages.

This is not only the most boring biography of Dickens I have ever read; it is one of the most boring biographies of anyone I have ever read. It is basically 600+ pages about Dickens' career as a writer and editor, focused on the mind-numbing details of which chapters of which books he wrote when, with some attempt to link fictional characters to events in Dickens own life. It contains virtually no literally analysis or exploration of his politics or who he was as a person. Yes, it is well researched, well written, and copiously documented, but I would not recommend this to anyone.

CHARLES DICKENS, by MICHAEL SLATER, Reviewed and Skewered by Zybysko.
One must be fair to a work of great depth by a true expert immersed in his subject, but at the same time, that depth and expertise mandates meeting high standards. On that basis, this is an excruciatingly confusing, lifeless and pedestrian plod through the vividly colorful life of the one of the greatest novelists in the English language. Dickens, a great stylist and a stupendous creator of immortal characters is here reduced to a sad sack, immersed in endless petty disputes with publishers and plagiarists, afflicted by a terrible marriage, a disappointing flock of children, hangers-on, and the class distinctions of early and mid Victorian England. Perhaps the greatest failure of this enormous book is the author's entirely incorrect assumption of thorough familiarity with the theme and plot of the novels, and the distressing absence of any literary criticism of the works. This is an amazing defect given the huge volume of Dickensian studies over more than a century. t
To give a simple comparison, the introductions to the Penguin paperback Dickens editions are almost universally elegant in both style and trenchant substance. There can be no doubt that the author is a real expert on Dickens life and work, which compounds the mystery of his inability to convey the two essentials of any biography of any very well-known serious novelist, which are how coherent plot and the characterization of major and minor characters are handled, or mishandled, to explain why any given work largely succeeds or fails.
The two major and correct criticisms of Charles Dickens' novels are his maudlin and excessive sentimentality and long detours from a clean plot line. The latter is explained by the peculiar method of publication in serial parts in cheap editions, in an era when hardbound books were available only to the very wealthy and through nonpublic and fee based lending libraries, and by stuffing irrelevancies into an otherwise connected narrative. By way of fair comparison the recent short pop volume by Norrie Epstein is not presented as either scholarly or complete, nor as p biography or literary criticism, yet succeeds as both, in a clear and interesting way. Her wonderful explanation of the four Pickwickians, whose life is a child's dream of snacking, odd encounters with the opposite gender, and interesting travels, just one long school vacation, and her excellent survey of the deep black terrifying midnights of oppressed children, ill fated Poor Smike, Tom the street sweeper, and Little Nell, the cruelest
baby sufferings of Oliver Twist, David Copperfield, and the high comedy of minor characters like Aunt Betsy Trotwood, Mr Pecksniff, Captain Cuttle, Mrs Gamp, Mrs. Nickleby, Mr Mantalini, and Wilkins McCawber are clearly outlined in such a way as to whet the reader's wish to read the novels in which they appear. Mr Slater is a great Dickens expert, yet seems to assume scholarly familiarity and good recall of the plots and characters of all the Dickens major novels, as he dispenses with any handholds for those new to the wonders of a novelist who wrote the bulk of his important long fiction about 150 years ago, yet seems as fresh today as the day the paperback serial hit the London streets. This is a fatal error that is not balanced by any analysis of style . Instead we buy pages on end devoted to minute details of day to day and year to year non-events, and the dreary business of writing and publishing. This is a common failing of all sorts of biographies today, where the mere accumulation , molecule by molecule, of every event, without any filtration of the perhaps meaningful from the utterly meaningless. One of the main virtues of human memory is our ability to forget, and even to willfully mistake or inaccurately recall, the infinite mass of detail of any life. Nor are these glaring defects excused by the economics of justifying a hefty retail sales price per book by sheer number of pages, rather than putting the whole elephant on the stove and boiling down and condensing the hidden flavors by reduction , not by putting more insipid dishwater into the pot. The last fair question is why this book is needed, given the six more or less modern long form Dickens biographies, each of which deals in a modern way with the Ellen Ternan question, the odd and repellent relation of Dickens to very young women in his wife's family, and to his probably manic-depressive, semi-educated, money haunted, and quarrelsome nature. How one man could father so many children, give hundreds of stage performances on rock star type concert tours, edit a magazine, do other journalism, keep two novels in process at once, engage in far travels, watch his money, battle copyright piracy, and still produce at a high level very long and complicated fiction for a long time is a mystery yet unexplained. The impact of the "blacking warehouse" incident, which was actually short and not really extraordinarily punishing, was already explored at length 100 years ago. The explanation is the commonplace of psychology, that events are not remembered or weighted according to actual significance, but reaction of younger and stupider personalities, unable at the time go get perspective, and then freezing the event as first misperceived. This author raises no new questions nor supplies any new answers not already in the canon. As more trenchant critics long ago brilliantly observed, Dickens is not of mere historical interest, nor a boringly long, often discursive manipulator of his readers emotions, but a supreme stylist, a past master of immediate depiction of his characters dress, manner of speech, open and secret intentions, reaction to life events, and often, the weather itself. Martin Amis hit the very center of the bulls-eye with his critique of the current sad state of the English and American novel, which is airless, all internalized, and "lacks weather". This book, in those terms, "lacks weather". First get the Norrie Epstein volume and read the introductions to Pickwick, Bleak House, and Copperfield in the Penguins. Then the other long standard bios will do, as this does not. Once again a great expert has just published his notes, not created by synthesis and analysis, a valuable addition to knowledge. Slater is not much of a stylist and utilizes the current Mid Atlantic choice of wording, thereby leaching out some color that would have given the bite of strong old British Tea to a work. How peculiar that the London of today, populated by large numbers of persons of Pakistani, Commonwealth Africa and Caribbean origins, not its poor Midlands and Irish immigrants and Native Cockneys of 100 years ago, now descends to writes its books in bland Mid-Atlantic diction. When will these writers learn how to construct a paragraph with a topic sentence as a road map for the reader, and then meander down the path and on the detour back to the highway to fill out that theme? (Probably never, due to lazy thinking and the ever present immersion in mere bulk of detail piled on detail.) Lastly much of the blame must fall on the editors who failed here, as they so often do, to just cut, and to re-shape, and force deeper and more meaningful material out of a nonfiction author, who is immersed in minutiae and cannot see, nor convey "the weather". Are they simply afraid of authors? And a flosk in der pisk if not a poche in der tuches to the academic friends who provide jacket endorsements, high praise where such is not deserved, a kind of Gresham's Law of nonfiction publishing today. ZYBYSKO NOV 2 09