Customer Reviews

Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens

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How many millions of words have been written about Charles Dickens? Many thousands in one famous biography alone (Ackroyd). Nelly Terman is there as the Mistress character in most of those, but what do we learn about Nelly? Nothing - until this biography.

It reads almost as a detective story as Tomalin uncovers not only the story of Terman-with-Dickens, but as much about Terman the woman as she can.

Highly recommended.

I think when this book came out, there was almost nothing known about Nell Ternan. But since I had already read the Slater bio, I felt a lot of the "info" in this book was redundant (non-sequentially, of course). Still, it makes for rather interesting reading, but nothing conclusive issues from it. In any case, you learn a lot about actors' lives at this period and about how Dickens presumably managed his double life (not to mention Collins and other writers who kept mistresses and alternate families safely hidden away).

An enjoyable read full of fun period details, but somehow, you come away a bit disappointed once it's all over with. And frankly, I found Nelly to be the least interesting of the sisters, and without Dickens, of almost no interest at all. Go figure. If you're a Victorianist, sure, read this book; if not, you may not really care about the Ternans and Dickens.