Dickens was our greatest novelist, yet the brilliance of his writing concealed a complex and contradictory character. How did he rise from humble origins to become one of the greatest Britons of all time? What drove him to leave his wife for a woman 30 years her junior, and why could he be so generous on the one hand and yet so mean-spirited to his own children on the other?
These are some of the questions explored by highly acclaimed biographer Claire Tomalin, former Literary Editor of the New Statesman and The Sunday Times, whose account of Dickens’ relationship with the actress Ellen Ternan in The Invisible Woman won three literary awards.