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Dickens
Detailed and definitive, this profile of the Victorian writer explores the private life of the complicated, insecure, and wildly ambitious man who became the best-known author of his day.
1195 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1990
75 people are currently reading
2942 people want to read
About the author
Peter Ackroyd
184 books1,492 followersPeter Ackroyd CBE is an English novelist and biographer with a particular interest in the history and culture of London.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 128 reviews
January 21, 2024
This is the original landmark biography of Charles Dickens. It is almost as much a study of the culture and period Dickens was born into, as it is a biography. Viewed solely as a biography it comprehensively details his life, his work and the influences he continues to have. It is both imaginative and scholarly, as well as being an engrossing and entertaining read.
NB. This is not the "shorter" version as the blurb suggests. The ISBN here is correct, but the links on Amazon are not. Peter Ackroyd has written so many tomes, books and booklets about Dickens that I am not surprised there is such confusion.
NB. This is not the "shorter" version as the blurb suggests. The ISBN here is correct, but the links on Amazon are not. Peter Ackroyd has written so many tomes, books and booklets about Dickens that I am not surprised there is such confusion.
December 25, 2020
So what possessed me to read a biography of Charles Dickens that was over 1,100 pages in length?
In the cinematic masterpiece, “Citizen Kane,” a flock of reporters attempt to piece together the events that happened in the life of a “great man” to distill his essence ... to discover “what made him who he was.” Although they uncover much, they never find what they’re seeking (although it is revealed to those of us in the audience).
I often felt that trying to decipher the man who was Charles Dickens would be a similar effort in futility. Through the years, I had read a great deal about him and had viewed many filmed biographies. But, with few exceptions, they were decidedly unsatisfactory. Most focused on a chronological retelling of events which were used to show that he’d drawn upon his life experiences in order to create his works. That’s fair enough, but what about his thought process? How did he interpret his world? And what were the influences that led to him being considered by many, many Readers (even today) the world’s greatest writer? In short, who was Charles Dickens?
I’m pleased to report that I believe I found the man in Peter Ackroyd’s astonishing tome, DICKENS.
Ackroyd does go through the events in Dickens’ life. However, he also filters through the facts, fictions, comments, letters, diary entries, newspaper accounts, gossiping, conversations, reviews, social norms, locations and observations ... compares them with Dickens’ known behavior at different points in his life ... and creates a hypothesis of what must have been going on in the writer’s mind at various stages. Ackroyd freely admits that these are conclusions he has drawn based on what sees as the probable “coming together” of these different elements. He does make a most compelling argument, though, and gave me (for the first time) a feeling that I actually knew Charles Dickens.
Let me mention the sole negative aspect for me regarding the book. Ackroyd has a most engaging writing style, but the same cannot be said for the layout of his manuscript. Many paragraphs extended anywhere from three-quarters of a page to longer than a page. Considering that the book essentially consisted of narrative, this made it more difficult for me to follow. In fact, if I had a quarter for every time that I lost my place while reading, I likely could have recovered what I paid for the book.
The benefits far outweighed the negatives, though. For instance, here is what I learned about Dickens’ writing practice:
* He observed and noticed everything. He then could take those elements and filter their essence into his stories. The result was that he was able to put his Readers into the scenes, and they lived those events with him.
* Dickens had to be enthused and energized to work on a story. In one instance, a story gestated for two years before he was able to begin. This wasn’t a problem, though, because he had multiple projects and activities in progress all of the time. In one instance, he was working on three writing projects at once!
* His preparation to begin a writing session almost seemed like a meditation from the way it was described.
* He would stay at his writing desk from 9 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon (with perhaps a short break for lunch). He stayed at his desk even if nothing came readily to his mind to write.
* A fictional work needed to have its final title before he could begin writing. Also, every character had to have a chosen name before being created on the page.
* When writing DAVID COPPERFIELD, he built a framework and then let his characters enter it. Once they settled in and decided what they were going to do, he narrated what he saw. He never began writing until his characters were “settled.”
I could go on with much more. This was so compelling for me.
Also having written fiction, Ackroyd would also include short “fantasy” chapters highlighting some aspect of Dickens that he wanted to bring to the forefront. My favorite was a conversation between Dickens and Little Dorrit!
At the end of the book, Ackroyd has chosen to replace the standard footnotes with a narrative version of resource Notes. I would suggest speed reading through most of these as they usually consist of resources he used and why he used them. It would be a mistake to completely ignore this section, though, as there are occasionally some gems that are worth noting.
I can’t say that I agreed with all of Ackroyd’s conclusions, but I was “there” for the vast majority of them. When I finished reading, I had a strong sense that I understood the great writer and how his genius worked. Could it be duplicated? Well, perhaps so. But, it is important to understand that Charles Dickens was a man of his time with boundless energy, an extremely strong will to succeed, and with a sense of personal discipline that would be extremely difficult to duplicate in our age of distractions.
DICKENS has my highest recommendation for anyone who wants to feel that they know Charles Dickens.
In the cinematic masterpiece, “Citizen Kane,” a flock of reporters attempt to piece together the events that happened in the life of a “great man” to distill his essence ... to discover “what made him who he was.” Although they uncover much, they never find what they’re seeking (although it is revealed to those of us in the audience).
I often felt that trying to decipher the man who was Charles Dickens would be a similar effort in futility. Through the years, I had read a great deal about him and had viewed many filmed biographies. But, with few exceptions, they were decidedly unsatisfactory. Most focused on a chronological retelling of events which were used to show that he’d drawn upon his life experiences in order to create his works. That’s fair enough, but what about his thought process? How did he interpret his world? And what were the influences that led to him being considered by many, many Readers (even today) the world’s greatest writer? In short, who was Charles Dickens?
I’m pleased to report that I believe I found the man in Peter Ackroyd’s astonishing tome, DICKENS.
Ackroyd does go through the events in Dickens’ life. However, he also filters through the facts, fictions, comments, letters, diary entries, newspaper accounts, gossiping, conversations, reviews, social norms, locations and observations ... compares them with Dickens’ known behavior at different points in his life ... and creates a hypothesis of what must have been going on in the writer’s mind at various stages. Ackroyd freely admits that these are conclusions he has drawn based on what sees as the probable “coming together” of these different elements. He does make a most compelling argument, though, and gave me (for the first time) a feeling that I actually knew Charles Dickens.
Let me mention the sole negative aspect for me regarding the book. Ackroyd has a most engaging writing style, but the same cannot be said for the layout of his manuscript. Many paragraphs extended anywhere from three-quarters of a page to longer than a page. Considering that the book essentially consisted of narrative, this made it more difficult for me to follow. In fact, if I had a quarter for every time that I lost my place while reading, I likely could have recovered what I paid for the book.
The benefits far outweighed the negatives, though. For instance, here is what I learned about Dickens’ writing practice:
* He observed and noticed everything. He then could take those elements and filter their essence into his stories. The result was that he was able to put his Readers into the scenes, and they lived those events with him.
* Dickens had to be enthused and energized to work on a story. In one instance, a story gestated for two years before he was able to begin. This wasn’t a problem, though, because he had multiple projects and activities in progress all of the time. In one instance, he was working on three writing projects at once!
* His preparation to begin a writing session almost seemed like a meditation from the way it was described.
* He would stay at his writing desk from 9 in the morning until 2 in the afternoon (with perhaps a short break for lunch). He stayed at his desk even if nothing came readily to his mind to write.
* A fictional work needed to have its final title before he could begin writing. Also, every character had to have a chosen name before being created on the page.
* When writing DAVID COPPERFIELD, he built a framework and then let his characters enter it. Once they settled in and decided what they were going to do, he narrated what he saw. He never began writing until his characters were “settled.”
I could go on with much more. This was so compelling for me.
Also having written fiction, Ackroyd would also include short “fantasy” chapters highlighting some aspect of Dickens that he wanted to bring to the forefront. My favorite was a conversation between Dickens and Little Dorrit!
At the end of the book, Ackroyd has chosen to replace the standard footnotes with a narrative version of resource Notes. I would suggest speed reading through most of these as they usually consist of resources he used and why he used them. It would be a mistake to completely ignore this section, though, as there are occasionally some gems that are worth noting.
I can’t say that I agreed with all of Ackroyd’s conclusions, but I was “there” for the vast majority of them. When I finished reading, I had a strong sense that I understood the great writer and how his genius worked. Could it be duplicated? Well, perhaps so. But, it is important to understand that Charles Dickens was a man of his time with boundless energy, an extremely strong will to succeed, and with a sense of personal discipline that would be extremely difficult to duplicate in our age of distractions.
DICKENS has my highest recommendation for anyone who wants to feel that they know Charles Dickens.
September 3, 2012
I bought this years ago, little realizing how useful it would be later on when I was researching the life of Charles Dickens. In recent years, some new biographies of Dickens have come out, which I fully plan to read, but this is still an authoritative work by a recognized Dickens scholar. Particularly interesting to me were some "literary interludes" where Ackroyd imagines his subject conversing with him, with other authors, or with his own literary progeny. Some fine illustrations are included.
July 25, 2011
Dickens: Gifted with a flawless memory, boundless energy, extraordinary talents of organization and management. Endlessly nursing (without relief) the wounds of childhood poverty and abandonment. Channeling that endless grief into a broad sympathy for the poor, both in his writing and in his activism. Also, an almost monomaniacal control freak in his personal life, domineering, unforgiving, and startlingly unfeeling towards those closest to him.
Ackroyd: Trying to stitch back together the textual evidence we have of Dickens's personal psychology with the fiction he created. Weaving together the incidents of his daily life, personal and social, with the books Dickens wrote, to try to find the mundane sources of some of Dickens' wildest flights of imagination. Throwing in ample cultural background so that a reader might use this biography as a decent starting point for knowing something about Victorian England. But the primary focus is psycho-biography, without a doubt.
The Verdict: Not primarily for academics (who will be driven nuts by its lack of systematic citation), this biography creates Dickens as a character appallingly flawed, but fascinating for all that. Only, clocking in at just under 1200 pages in the hardback edition, the book also suffers from baggy repetitiveness. Which I guess befits an author who made baggy repetitiveness into high art. Still, the dilatory, speculative nature of a lot of Ackroyd's prose feels prolonged and hesitant ("Is it not possible that his real yearning is toward his own mother, a yearning he so frequently and often denied? Was he in this dream expressing all the real pining of his nature for the young mother who had once nursed and nourished him and whose later apparent abandonment of him led to so much bitterness and even coarseness in his relationship to her? Was he returning to his origins in such dreams? It cannot be known.") Of course it can't be known, Peter. We know that going into this biography. It goes without saying. Carry on.
This biography does a nice job of fleshing out Dickens' complicated but not consistently unloving marriage to Catherine Dickens, the wife whom he abandoned and publicly shamed. But I remained unconvinced by Ackroyd's assertion that Dickens could not have been conducting a sexual affair with Ellen Ternan, the young actress with whom he became obsessed at the time he left his wife. All of the evidence he cited as proof of the impossiblity of such a relationship could be just as easily recruited to prove that yes, of course they had an affair.
Ackroyd: Trying to stitch back together the textual evidence we have of Dickens's personal psychology with the fiction he created. Weaving together the incidents of his daily life, personal and social, with the books Dickens wrote, to try to find the mundane sources of some of Dickens' wildest flights of imagination. Throwing in ample cultural background so that a reader might use this biography as a decent starting point for knowing something about Victorian England. But the primary focus is psycho-biography, without a doubt.
The Verdict: Not primarily for academics (who will be driven nuts by its lack of systematic citation), this biography creates Dickens as a character appallingly flawed, but fascinating for all that. Only, clocking in at just under 1200 pages in the hardback edition, the book also suffers from baggy repetitiveness. Which I guess befits an author who made baggy repetitiveness into high art. Still, the dilatory, speculative nature of a lot of Ackroyd's prose feels prolonged and hesitant ("Is it not possible that his real yearning is toward his own mother, a yearning he so frequently and often denied? Was he in this dream expressing all the real pining of his nature for the young mother who had once nursed and nourished him and whose later apparent abandonment of him led to so much bitterness and even coarseness in his relationship to her? Was he returning to his origins in such dreams? It cannot be known.") Of course it can't be known, Peter. We know that going into this biography. It goes without saying. Carry on.
This biography does a nice job of fleshing out Dickens' complicated but not consistently unloving marriage to Catherine Dickens, the wife whom he abandoned and publicly shamed. But I remained unconvinced by Ackroyd's assertion that Dickens could not have been conducting a sexual affair with Ellen Ternan, the young actress with whom he became obsessed at the time he left his wife. All of the evidence he cited as proof of the impossiblity of such a relationship could be just as easily recruited to prove that yes, of course they had an affair.
September 13, 2012
If an appointments committee existed to examine the CVs & references of potential biographers before selecting the best fitted for the task, they would have been hard-pressed not to have at least short-listed Ackroyd to write about Dickens. He is well qualified to undertake the task, being:-
• the author of other excellent biographies – particularly on Eliot, Blake & Thomas More
• a novelist of some standing in his own right, and therefore with a considerable insight into the processes involved in developing his own extravagant plots & characters
• like Dickens, a writer obsessed with London
• like Dickens also, someone with experience of hack-work (witness, sadly, his more recent rash of biographies) and therefore with a good understanding of its nature & pressures
So, having passed the audition in retrospect – whew! I’ll bet that’s a relief to him – the biography is a splendid piece of work.
Incidentally, I hope they never appoint that committee. What literary committee would ever have selected a drunken, whoring short-arse (and Scotsman to boot) like Boswell to write his biography of Samuel Johnson, or appointed a militant leftie MP like Michael Foot (and a Plymothian/Plymouthian [?!] to boot) to write his excellent biography of Swift? I’m also sure that they would have been taken in by the seemingly glowing CV of A. N. Wilson, and appointed him to add to his ever growing list of hack-written biographies of everyone under the sun.
At his very best, Ackroyd is a chameleon writer of biographies; his style of writing adapts to and reflects the nature of his subject in a quite unique way. In “Dickens”, the biography takes on a novel-like quality, in the sense of having the qualities of a great novel. Dickens is revealed in all his complexity and ambiguity of character. In his narrative, Ackroyd returns again and again, to each of the themes he finds revealed in Dickens life and character, building the overall portrait in a spiral rather than a linear way. Each return to a theme adds to the understanding of, and the depth, and the contradictions, revealed in that aspect of Dickens the man.
As Ackroyd sums up his purpose in writing of Dickens:
“I never did like or dislike him. All I wanted to do was to understand him, which is quite a different thing. In that sense he is like a character in a novel I might write – I never dislike any of my characters I have created. I simply try to understand them and, in understanding them, to bring them to life.”
In order to achieve this, Ackroyd makes use of very thorough research, interpreting massive amounts of evidence and opinions from Dickens contemporaries . He uses all his sources carefully, sensitively and with great imaginative insight. At times he builds a composite picture from a number of sources, for instance in showing him as a public reader or a conversationalist. But he is not afraid to display the ambiguities and even frank contradictions in his evidence.
He avoids the trap that so many contemporary biographers leap into head-first, of drawing conclusions and then manipulating the evidence to back-up their conclusion. For instance, Ackroyd presented much evidence about the relationship between Ellen Ternan, very detailed evidence, but in the end he refuses to reach any solid conclusion of his own about it.
“I have a kind of complex about discovering everything there is to know, but this is probably because I realise just how much cannot be known, cannot be recovered.”
Halleluiah! - a biographer who is happy to remain inconclusive, and to admit the difficulties presented by the task – I admire him greatly for it. Too many enter the task with a determination to make new revelations about their subject, to produce some startling new facet of them or their lives. Often the evidence they use is either highly selective, or is not sufficient to support the conclusions reached. Perhaps the most absurd I’ve come across was in A. N. Wilson’s (sorry to return to that hobbyhorse of mine) biography of C S Lewis. Pulling out the old chestnut as to whether Lewis had a sexual relationship with Mrs Moore, he states that as there was no conclusive evidence either way, on balance one had to conclude that there had been one. What?! Am I missing something here? I don’t really care on which side his conclusions had fallen if he had presented, like Ackroyd, detailed evidence. But that’s just plain bad biography, and thankfully “Dickens” is written by too good a biographer to fall into such a lazy trap.
As would be expected from a novelist writing about a novelist, he produces great insights into how Dickens writing & life link together:
“Dickens fiction is not some separate entity, to be extracted from his life and other works, but rather part of the fabric of his existence as he makes his way through the world.”
However, he is also aware of the dangers in trying to draw too clear a set of links between details of Dickens life and of his fiction. Early in the book he warns against the simplistic idea of making his father = Micawber and his mother = Mrs Nickleby. He shows the parallels, but spends much time showing the complexities of the parents, and of Dickens relationships with them.
I liked the way he showed interesting links between Dickens own personality and his characters:
“In monsters like these [Pecksniff & Scrooge] he was caricaturing certain aspects of his temperament, that is why there is always that particle of affection which springs from self-love, and it is precisely that affection which makes these characters so vividly alive.”
In his summing up, he gets closest to the nub of how Dickens fiction interweaves with Dickens the man and Dickens the writer:
“When his fiction is surveyed in all its paradoxes, its inconsistencies and its complexities, it ought also to be emphasised that such ambivalences are not resolved because, given the nature of the man and of the writer, they could never be resolved. His books are in that sense as incomplete and as contradictory as his own self, as any human being.”
I loved the brief commentary he provided on each book, especially that on “Bleak House”.
“Everything is touching everything else. The city is the fog covered sphere which Dickens revolves in his hand, trying to peer into the centre where past and future are gathered.”
This beautifully encapsulates something of the nature of that novel. It’s interesting that it also might also be said of some of Ackroyd’s own novels, especially “The House of Doctor Dee”. In fact, taking out the name Dickens, it might have come from one of his own novels.
This was one of the most satisfying biographies I’ve ever read, and one I will dip into on many occasions in the future.
I could share a whole set of favourite quotes from the book, but just one that made me smile a number of times as it’s come to mind:
“It is characteristic of Dickens who, when he grasps the wrong end of the stick, never fails to belabour everyone in sight with it.”
• the author of other excellent biographies – particularly on Eliot, Blake & Thomas More
• a novelist of some standing in his own right, and therefore with a considerable insight into the processes involved in developing his own extravagant plots & characters
• like Dickens, a writer obsessed with London
• like Dickens also, someone with experience of hack-work (witness, sadly, his more recent rash of biographies) and therefore with a good understanding of its nature & pressures
So, having passed the audition in retrospect – whew! I’ll bet that’s a relief to him – the biography is a splendid piece of work.
Incidentally, I hope they never appoint that committee. What literary committee would ever have selected a drunken, whoring short-arse (and Scotsman to boot) like Boswell to write his biography of Samuel Johnson, or appointed a militant leftie MP like Michael Foot (and a Plymothian/Plymouthian [?!] to boot) to write his excellent biography of Swift? I’m also sure that they would have been taken in by the seemingly glowing CV of A. N. Wilson, and appointed him to add to his ever growing list of hack-written biographies of everyone under the sun.
At his very best, Ackroyd is a chameleon writer of biographies; his style of writing adapts to and reflects the nature of his subject in a quite unique way. In “Dickens”, the biography takes on a novel-like quality, in the sense of having the qualities of a great novel. Dickens is revealed in all his complexity and ambiguity of character. In his narrative, Ackroyd returns again and again, to each of the themes he finds revealed in Dickens life and character, building the overall portrait in a spiral rather than a linear way. Each return to a theme adds to the understanding of, and the depth, and the contradictions, revealed in that aspect of Dickens the man.
As Ackroyd sums up his purpose in writing of Dickens:
“I never did like or dislike him. All I wanted to do was to understand him, which is quite a different thing. In that sense he is like a character in a novel I might write – I never dislike any of my characters I have created. I simply try to understand them and, in understanding them, to bring them to life.”
In order to achieve this, Ackroyd makes use of very thorough research, interpreting massive amounts of evidence and opinions from Dickens contemporaries . He uses all his sources carefully, sensitively and with great imaginative insight. At times he builds a composite picture from a number of sources, for instance in showing him as a public reader or a conversationalist. But he is not afraid to display the ambiguities and even frank contradictions in his evidence.
He avoids the trap that so many contemporary biographers leap into head-first, of drawing conclusions and then manipulating the evidence to back-up their conclusion. For instance, Ackroyd presented much evidence about the relationship between Ellen Ternan, very detailed evidence, but in the end he refuses to reach any solid conclusion of his own about it.
“I have a kind of complex about discovering everything there is to know, but this is probably because I realise just how much cannot be known, cannot be recovered.”
Halleluiah! - a biographer who is happy to remain inconclusive, and to admit the difficulties presented by the task – I admire him greatly for it. Too many enter the task with a determination to make new revelations about their subject, to produce some startling new facet of them or their lives. Often the evidence they use is either highly selective, or is not sufficient to support the conclusions reached. Perhaps the most absurd I’ve come across was in A. N. Wilson’s (sorry to return to that hobbyhorse of mine) biography of C S Lewis. Pulling out the old chestnut as to whether Lewis had a sexual relationship with Mrs Moore, he states that as there was no conclusive evidence either way, on balance one had to conclude that there had been one. What?! Am I missing something here? I don’t really care on which side his conclusions had fallen if he had presented, like Ackroyd, detailed evidence. But that’s just plain bad biography, and thankfully “Dickens” is written by too good a biographer to fall into such a lazy trap.
As would be expected from a novelist writing about a novelist, he produces great insights into how Dickens writing & life link together:
“Dickens fiction is not some separate entity, to be extracted from his life and other works, but rather part of the fabric of his existence as he makes his way through the world.”
However, he is also aware of the dangers in trying to draw too clear a set of links between details of Dickens life and of his fiction. Early in the book he warns against the simplistic idea of making his father = Micawber and his mother = Mrs Nickleby. He shows the parallels, but spends much time showing the complexities of the parents, and of Dickens relationships with them.
I liked the way he showed interesting links between Dickens own personality and his characters:
“In monsters like these [Pecksniff & Scrooge] he was caricaturing certain aspects of his temperament, that is why there is always that particle of affection which springs from self-love, and it is precisely that affection which makes these characters so vividly alive.”
In his summing up, he gets closest to the nub of how Dickens fiction interweaves with Dickens the man and Dickens the writer:
“When his fiction is surveyed in all its paradoxes, its inconsistencies and its complexities, it ought also to be emphasised that such ambivalences are not resolved because, given the nature of the man and of the writer, they could never be resolved. His books are in that sense as incomplete and as contradictory as his own self, as any human being.”
I loved the brief commentary he provided on each book, especially that on “Bleak House”.
“Everything is touching everything else. The city is the fog covered sphere which Dickens revolves in his hand, trying to peer into the centre where past and future are gathered.”
This beautifully encapsulates something of the nature of that novel. It’s interesting that it also might also be said of some of Ackroyd’s own novels, especially “The House of Doctor Dee”. In fact, taking out the name Dickens, it might have come from one of his own novels.
This was one of the most satisfying biographies I’ve ever read, and one I will dip into on many occasions in the future.
I could share a whole set of favourite quotes from the book, but just one that made me smile a number of times as it’s come to mind:
“It is characteristic of Dickens who, when he grasps the wrong end of the stick, never fails to belabour everyone in sight with it.”
February 4, 2014
In my reading life to date neither a Dickens biography or - hush thy mouth! - a Dickens novel has been held in these hands of mine. (Well, that's not quite true, I have shuffled and re-filed 'Great Expectations' around my bookshelf many times over the years). Until now. Until Mr Ackroyd's book literally fell off the shelf at the bach (NZ speak for holiday house) we rented over Christmas. I figured the literary gods were trying to tell me something.
I'm the kind of reader (and writer) who prefers to know something of their subject before reading their work. I've been gathering my breath over the years to read Dickens, and now I understand why the hell he's so damn famous, I'm ready to begin.
The background information about the Victorian literary scene was so interesting (au revoir 1930s Paris obsession, or perhaps just goodbye for now...). Particularly that stories were serialized monthly, with Dickens' readerships often at 40,000 and occasionally 100,000, and sometimes even eclipsing sales of the London Times! Also interesting was the joy Dickens got from reading his work aloud to large audiences, and the way he went back and re-punctuated and edited his stories for this purpose.
Ackroyd is an excellent biographer, creating a readable story about a complicated life. He was not afraid to say something was 'inconclusive' (e.g. the nature of the relationship between Ellen and Dickens) and gave some excellent information on Dickens' creative process.
I was reading Donovan Bixley's incredible picture book for adults 'Faithfully Mozart' at the same time as 'Dickens', and was struck by the huge societal changes that marked the short 56 year gap between their births. In both books I was shocked and saddened by the high infant mortality rate.
Four stars as the last hundred pages dragged on and I found myself skimming to reach the end of the month-long journey.
Favourite Quote:
"This was indeed Dickens's genius: to remove his private concerns into a larger symbolic world so that they became the very image of his own time." (308)
I'm the kind of reader (and writer) who prefers to know something of their subject before reading their work. I've been gathering my breath over the years to read Dickens, and now I understand why the hell he's so damn famous, I'm ready to begin.
The background information about the Victorian literary scene was so interesting (au revoir 1930s Paris obsession, or perhaps just goodbye for now...). Particularly that stories were serialized monthly, with Dickens' readerships often at 40,000 and occasionally 100,000, and sometimes even eclipsing sales of the London Times! Also interesting was the joy Dickens got from reading his work aloud to large audiences, and the way he went back and re-punctuated and edited his stories for this purpose.
Ackroyd is an excellent biographer, creating a readable story about a complicated life. He was not afraid to say something was 'inconclusive' (e.g. the nature of the relationship between Ellen and Dickens) and gave some excellent information on Dickens' creative process.
I was reading Donovan Bixley's incredible picture book for adults 'Faithfully Mozart' at the same time as 'Dickens', and was struck by the huge societal changes that marked the short 56 year gap between their births. In both books I was shocked and saddened by the high infant mortality rate.
Four stars as the last hundred pages dragged on and I found myself skimming to reach the end of the month-long journey.
Favourite Quote:
"This was indeed Dickens's genius: to remove his private concerns into a larger symbolic world so that they became the very image of his own time." (308)
April 9, 2016
It took a month, but I finished it. This biography is chock a block full of information. The endnotes and bibliography were very informative as well.
The bio is a good introduction to Dickens. Ackroyd stuck to the facts as he he found them. Yes, I will still read more Dickens biographies because there are areas that I want to study more. Because there was so much information Ackroyd often had to just do a brief mention of some of the accounts in Dickens life.
If one is unfamiliar with Dickens as a person this book is a good place to start and don't be turned off by the legenth of the book.
The bio is a good introduction to Dickens. Ackroyd stuck to the facts as he he found them. Yes, I will still read more Dickens biographies because there are areas that I want to study more. Because there was so much information Ackroyd often had to just do a brief mention of some of the accounts in Dickens life.
If one is unfamiliar with Dickens as a person this book is a good place to start and don't be turned off by the legenth of the book.
July 13, 2018
I picked this up out of a box of books that had belonged to my uncle. I chose it as it was one of the newer looking books and I really like 'The Christmas Carol'.
I hate a love/hate relationship with Dickens's books, love 'The Christmas Carol' and 'Oliver Twist' but hate the other Christmas books & 'Great Expectations, so wasn't really sure how much I would like this biography of him.
Peter Ackroyd does a great job of bringing Dickens to life, and what a life! He was constantly working, right up until the day he died. He was always walking and moving from place to place. He traveled to America and Europe. I had no idea he did public readings for his books or oversaw them being made into performances. He just seemed to fit so much in!
The one thing I would have liked more information about was his relationship with Ellen Ternan. They obviously saw a lot of each other but in what context is unclear. The author suggests at one point that the relationship wasn't sexual but I'm not so sure. Or maybe the author was sticking to the known facts and didn't want to speculate? I was only surprised because I have whole book about their relationship on my tbr list.
This is a great book about Dickens. Even if you are not a fan of Dickens's works, you will appreciate the life of this famous author. Ackroyd does an amazing job and he does it in such a way that it reads like fiction and keeps you engaged from beginning to end. Would recommend.
I hate a love/hate relationship with Dickens's books, love 'The Christmas Carol' and 'Oliver Twist' but hate the other Christmas books & 'Great Expectations, so wasn't really sure how much I would like this biography of him.
Peter Ackroyd does a great job of bringing Dickens to life, and what a life! He was constantly working, right up until the day he died. He was always walking and moving from place to place. He traveled to America and Europe. I had no idea he did public readings for his books or oversaw them being made into performances. He just seemed to fit so much in!
The one thing I would have liked more information about was his relationship with Ellen Ternan. They obviously saw a lot of each other but in what context is unclear. The author suggests at one point that the relationship wasn't sexual but I'm not so sure. Or maybe the author was sticking to the known facts and didn't want to speculate? I was only surprised because I have whole book about their relationship on my tbr list.
This is a great book about Dickens. Even if you are not a fan of Dickens's works, you will appreciate the life of this famous author. Ackroyd does an amazing job and he does it in such a way that it reads like fiction and keeps you engaged from beginning to end. Would recommend.
March 31, 2008
One of the most beautifully written and engaging biographies ever. Ackroyd focuses clearly on the personality and affect of the author, the forces in his life, including continuing reinvention of the self that made Dickens write and keep writing. The book contains a bit of literary criticism, but this biography is most decidedly not of the "life and works" variety.
Even at 1100 pages, I was sorry that the book weren't twice as long. It is one of those books that I hate to finish, so after reaching the half-way point I ration the pages I permit myself to read in a day.
Even at 1100 pages, I was sorry that the book weren't twice as long. It is one of those books that I hate to finish, so after reaching the half-way point I ration the pages I permit myself to read in a day.
May 13, 2020
"Charles Dickens was the last of the great eighteenth-century novelists and the first of the great symbolic novelists, and in the crushing equilibrium between these two forces dwells the real strength of his art." (p. 576)
September 4, 2020
Una bio che si legge con molto interesse e che traccia il profilo umano e letterario di un uomo che è l'emblema stesso del vittorianesimo. Personaggio singolare, iperattivo, determinato, metodico, sentimentale con lo sguardo sempre rivolto al passato, all'infanzia travagliata, a quel senso di precarietà e a quell'ansia di rivalsa che non lo abbandoneranno mai e che lo indurranno a sostenere ritmi lavorativi frenetici sempre con un occhio rivolto all'aspetto finanziario, al guadagno derivante dalla sua produzione letteraria e soprattutto dalle appassionate letture pubbliche che fecero di lui un mito, non solo in Inghilterra, e tali da allontanare da sé lo spettro dell'indigenza patita nella sua gioventù. Vita vissuta e vicende narrative, personaggi veri e fittizi che si intrecciano e percorrono un sentiero parallelo fino alla fine...
April 1, 2021
How can anyone call an 1100 page book an easy read, but Peter Ackroyd's "Dickens fills that bill...You're taken through places, events & people, all of which create a perspective that emerges on his masterful pieces of literature...Unlike some reviewers, I came to look forward to Ackroyd's Steinbeck "Grapes of Wrath-like" inter-chapters that have Dickens interact with some of his famous literary characters and some of his social political and artistic contemporaries...These inter-chapters breath life into Dickens, giving us insights we ordinarily would have to dig for...Good Stuff!!!
November 21, 2021
Mamma mia che viaggio nell’800 e nella vita di Dickens. Finale emozionante. Biografia che ti porta all’interno della vita di Dickens. Finale straziante.
March 3, 2017
Possibly the only biography of Dickens ever written that actually reads like a novel by Charles Dickens, this book is immense, sweeping, atmospheric, and richly detailed. It might seem difficult to sum up the measure of a man's life in even a thousand pages, but Ackroyd capably rises to the challenge. By the end the reader is left feeling both awed by Dickens' genius and saddened by his incurable loneliness.
December 15, 2021
Кропотливое, тщательное, перфекционисткое воссоздание жизни и личности Диккенса.
September 16, 2019
This is an outstanding biography, surely the best on Dickens and with few peers on any other subject. Ackroyd is exhaustive in his scrutiny of primary and secondary source material and is sensible, perceptive, extraordinarily thorough, and sound in his analysis and conclusions.
His inter-chapters where he variously imagines meetings between Dickens himself and some of the characters, for me, grate a little. However, this minor irritation is of no consequence when put next to the fine scholarship which melds Dicken's life and his writing.
I particularly appreciated Ackroyd's balance in dealing with the all too imperfect man whose writing included so much that is magnificent. Unlike many of the Goodreads reviewers, I found Ackroyd's reluctance to jump to salacious conclusions about the Dickens-Ternan relationship and the alleged son is very fair and reasonable.
He considers the various testimonies on the question and poses a conclusion which, with one qualification, I can accept: "All the engagement of his nature, all the idealism and veneration, were elicited only by the innocent young girl or young woman; and since this is the tone that Dickens always adopted towards Ellen Ternan, it seems almost inconceivable that theirs was in any sense a 'consummated' affair. we might consider this at least as a hypothesis, therefore - all the evidence about Dickens's character, and all the evidence we possess about Ellen Ternan herself, suggest that the relationship between them acted for Dickens as the realisation of one of his most enduring fictional fantasies. That of sexless marriage with a young, idealised virgin." (Ch 30).
My one niggle in relation to this is that Dickens appears, on the evidence of his wife's frequent pregnancies, to have had a lusty libido, still active in years when he was struggling in his relationship with Catherine. In view of that libido, can I believe that he was celibate with Ellen after ejecting Catherine from the family home? I do struggle with that.
Regardless, Ackroyd's examination of the evidence and of Dickens's ...unusual ... character contains no fatal flaw, whether we agree with him or not.
For anyone who admires Dickens's writing and wishes to understand better the man and the books, this is essential reading.
His inter-chapters where he variously imagines meetings between Dickens himself and some of the characters, for me, grate a little. However, this minor irritation is of no consequence when put next to the fine scholarship which melds Dicken's life and his writing.
I particularly appreciated Ackroyd's balance in dealing with the all too imperfect man whose writing included so much that is magnificent. Unlike many of the Goodreads reviewers, I found Ackroyd's reluctance to jump to salacious conclusions about the Dickens-Ternan relationship and the alleged son is very fair and reasonable.
He considers the various testimonies on the question and poses a conclusion which, with one qualification, I can accept: "All the engagement of his nature, all the idealism and veneration, were elicited only by the innocent young girl or young woman; and since this is the tone that Dickens always adopted towards Ellen Ternan, it seems almost inconceivable that theirs was in any sense a 'consummated' affair. we might consider this at least as a hypothesis, therefore - all the evidence about Dickens's character, and all the evidence we possess about Ellen Ternan herself, suggest that the relationship between them acted for Dickens as the realisation of one of his most enduring fictional fantasies. That of sexless marriage with a young, idealised virgin." (Ch 30).
My one niggle in relation to this is that Dickens appears, on the evidence of his wife's frequent pregnancies, to have had a lusty libido, still active in years when he was struggling in his relationship with Catherine. In view of that libido, can I believe that he was celibate with Ellen after ejecting Catherine from the family home? I do struggle with that.
Regardless, Ackroyd's examination of the evidence and of Dickens's ...unusual ... character contains no fatal flaw, whether we agree with him or not.
For anyone who admires Dickens's writing and wishes to understand better the man and the books, this is essential reading.
July 15, 2018
A huge book - a book so detailed and informative, yet always, always engaging.
The main thrust of the biography is designed to show how inextricably linked Dickens novels where with his life. Ackroyd's attention to detail, both of the novels, and of Dickens the man, paint a picture of a tortured soul, an incredibly disciplined workaholic, and above all, a very odd man - a man that in turn could be kind yet dismissively harsh; jovial, yet depressed; a man incredibly generous to those in need, yet constantly in fear of losing everything he had.
Ackroyd details Dickens life from his beginning to his end, interspersing among the chapters 'mini chapters' where, variously, Dickens characters speak to each other, Ackroyd is interviewed on the writing of the book, and others where Ackroyd converses with Dickens himself.
Ackroyd's biography has an impressively psychoanalytical bent, yet remains always suggestive.
A brilliant piece of work.
The main thrust of the biography is designed to show how inextricably linked Dickens novels where with his life. Ackroyd's attention to detail, both of the novels, and of Dickens the man, paint a picture of a tortured soul, an incredibly disciplined workaholic, and above all, a very odd man - a man that in turn could be kind yet dismissively harsh; jovial, yet depressed; a man incredibly generous to those in need, yet constantly in fear of losing everything he had.
Ackroyd details Dickens life from his beginning to his end, interspersing among the chapters 'mini chapters' where, variously, Dickens characters speak to each other, Ackroyd is interviewed on the writing of the book, and others where Ackroyd converses with Dickens himself.
Ackroyd's biography has an impressively psychoanalytical bent, yet remains always suggestive.
A brilliant piece of work.
July 21, 2019
I found this book very dull but I don't think that is down to the writer, I just did not enjoy reading about Dickens' life. I always think that I need to read more Dickens, as I have only read Oliver Twist, A Chritmas Carol and Great Expectations so it was interesting to learn how Dickens wrote these and about his life but I just don't think he seems like a very nice person.
Dickens behaviour as a husband was not normal at all! I'm sorry but if my partner wanted to keep my sister's clothes, ring and a lock of her hair after she died and say he wanted to be buried with her, I'd have something to say about it! He gets his wife pregnant over and over during their marriage and then when he has enough of her, he casts her off. It just doesn't scream 'nice man' to me.
The author of this book obviously loves him and doesn't really censor any of his behaviour so I think I need to read a more harsh critique on Dickens' life.
Dickens behaviour as a husband was not normal at all! I'm sorry but if my partner wanted to keep my sister's clothes, ring and a lock of her hair after she died and say he wanted to be buried with her, I'd have something to say about it! He gets his wife pregnant over and over during their marriage and then when he has enough of her, he casts her off. It just doesn't scream 'nice man' to me.
The author of this book obviously loves him and doesn't really censor any of his behaviour so I think I need to read a more harsh critique on Dickens' life.
October 23, 2019
Read this in 1997 and noted at the time:
A massive tome that should have been half the length; Ackroyd can’t keep his busybody nose out of it, and he’s forever ‘discussing’ Dickens' behaviour, and surmising and assuming; often to the extent that he merely repeats what the actions of the people involved tell us anyway. A most irritating writer, who should have been sorted out by some sensible editor. Dickens comes across as pretty irritating too – a typical genius, you might say, with that overriding sense of purpose that can’t see that he can ever do anything wrong.. When he ditched his wife of 22 years, she got all the blame. He was just perfect. And such a goer – never stopped, walking mile after mile, writing novels at the same time as he was providing articles and stories for Household Words and other papers, entertaining, travelling, doing readings, performing in plays that he usually produced as well, and keeping himself busy until he practically broke down.
A massive tome that should have been half the length; Ackroyd can’t keep his busybody nose out of it, and he’s forever ‘discussing’ Dickens' behaviour, and surmising and assuming; often to the extent that he merely repeats what the actions of the people involved tell us anyway. A most irritating writer, who should have been sorted out by some sensible editor. Dickens comes across as pretty irritating too – a typical genius, you might say, with that overriding sense of purpose that can’t see that he can ever do anything wrong.. When he ditched his wife of 22 years, she got all the blame. He was just perfect. And such a goer – never stopped, walking mile after mile, writing novels at the same time as he was providing articles and stories for Household Words and other papers, entertaining, travelling, doing readings, performing in plays that he usually produced as well, and keeping himself busy until he practically broke down.
Read
April 1, 2022A really good biography - plenty of interesting detail. Sometimes Peter Ackroyd's style was a bit irritating; in the early chapters he frequently uses the sentence structure "I'm not saying that this event caused Dickens to ...... but on the other hand, maybe it did", when, if that is what he thinks (and he clearly does!) he should just say it, and let us readers debate whether we think he is right or wrong.
At the end too, there are about 3 pages of generalisations which I "skip-read". I think he was probably struggling to find a way of rounding of the ending of the book, rather than just finishing abruptly within Dickens' death, but for me it wasn't needed.
However, if you are looking for a good, detailed biography of Dickens and one which will really help you understand the man, this is the one! : - )
At the end too, there are about 3 pages of generalisations which I "skip-read". I think he was probably struggling to find a way of rounding of the ending of the book, rather than just finishing abruptly within Dickens' death, but for me it wasn't needed.
However, if you are looking for a good, detailed biography of Dickens and one which will really help you understand the man, this is the one! : - )
October 6, 2009
I read the unabridged version of this book a long time ago. It's one of the best biographies I have ever read--very engaging and highly readable--no small feat for a book of that length. Dickens emerges as flawed and human like the rest of us, but with a talent for turning those flaws and his experiences into works that change lives.
June 2, 2012
Annoyed to discover (in small print)that I have an abridged edition of this book. But I'll read it anyway.
I don't know how much this was abridged but it's a perfectly good biography. It leaves you with a very strong sense of Dickens, the man.
I don't know how much this was abridged but it's a perfectly good biography. It leaves you with a very strong sense of Dickens, the man.
July 29, 2025
I may not have thought as much of "Dickens the man" as I did before reading this book, but I have a far greater understanding of who he was, the world he lived in, the creative process he worked through, and the various lenses it takes to examine a complicated life honestly. Peter Ackroyd does a marvelous job! I can't recommend this biography enough. I may understand Dickens better and humanity less, but perhaps that leads to greater insight in the end.
March 13, 2019
If you LOVE Dickens . . . You must read this book. I can’t imagine a more THOROUGH biography!
May 21, 2022
This edition of “Dickens” is an abridged one and comes in at 579 pages plus index. I can only imagine what was left out since this seems to be as complete a biography of an author as could be written. Not only is it complete, but Ackroyd’s language evokes the 19th century; elegant, ultra-literate and fluid. His subject remains one of the great figures of literature but also the stage as his readings became as popular as his novels, both here in the US and in England. He made £20,000 on his last US tour alone. But Dickens bred his way into financial struggles, both real and imaginary. His eight surviving children of ten born were hugely disappointing to their father. He said of them, collectively: “having brought up the largest family ever known with the smallest disposition to do anything for themselves.” He ended up supporting some while allowing his eldest daughter, Georgina, most of his company and much of his detail work, especially on his tours. It could be argued that the Dickens tours cost him his life as he continued them while suffering a neurological disease the focused on his left side, particularly his foot. Ackroyd goes into the writing of each of Dickens’ fifteen novels and numerous of his shorter offerings, usually printed in one of his many magazines that he edited, plus mention of the many dramatic efforts he made, both as a writer and as a performer. Ackroyd’s evidence would suggest that Dickens’ true calling was to the theater, though he never played more than a supporting role except in the little playlets that he wrote for his family. He also directed, consulted and all but produced many offerings on the London stage since so many of them involved his own works. The biography constantly harkens back to Dickens’ childhood, from which he traces many of Dickens’ characters, settings and motivations. His horrendous family life is traced, mainly focused on his worthless father, James, who spent several terms in debtor’s prison, but the author’s constant support of his brothers and sisters, no matter how worthy or how little worth they evidenced, was notable. His marriage to a woman named Catherine turned sour after many years. One is left with the impression that he simply outgrew her, but his real love was for a much younger woman, Ellen Ternan. Their relationship was affected by the fact that she did not travel anywhere without her mother and only in the later years of their relationship did Dickens and Ellen have much time to themselves. Ackroyd leaves open the question as to the sexual nature of the pairing, but the love was deep and eternal, as far as Dickens was concerned. That said, most of Dickens’ travels were accompanied by a various set of male friends and associates, including the novelist Wilkie Collins. Ackroyd traces the occasional meetings of Dickens with other famous authors, notably Carlyle, but he did not usually have to seek them out—they clambered to reach him. Dickens’ popularity was such that, though he loved the theater and attended often, near the end of his career he had to go disguised, so great was his popularity that he could not otherwise have avoided being mobbed by fans. Of particular interest to me was the constant pattern of writing novels in “numbers” to correspond with entries into magazines, later to be assembled into books. He was constantly trying to reach deadlines, as a result, and the pressure on him was enormous. Another fascinating part of the biography is the tracing of Dickens’ movements from house to house, apartment to apartment and office to office. Though he died in Gad’s Hill Place, it was merely the last of his homes. One does, after some reading of Ackroyd, wonder when Dickens slept and how he remembered which residence was his! This is without doubt the most thorough biography I have ever read, and certainly one of the most fascinating, both for its personal information about its subject, but also for his works. It takes some time to get through, but it is more than worth the effort.
January 27, 2016
The level of research by Peter Ackroyd into this biography is in itself impressive but it is the manner of delivery that takes the biscuit. Without a doubt the author is amongst the best at this form of writing: concise, detailed, authoritative, at all times precise. It is his understanding, empathetic in its depth, that allows him the courage to take one or two creative liberties. Without an ounce of conceit he introduces fictional details of Dickens death. He does this as by way of starting this intimate analysis by fast forwarding to the terminal point in Dickens life 13 his demise. Obviously Ackroyd wasn 19t there and whatever thoughts were transcribed by those present the final expression as described by the biographer was not recorded. His descriptive flourishes include the suggestion that Dickens face bore an infantile look. Ackroyd also seems to think that the great author 19s mental state was one of mellow fruition. This may strike some as not staying true to the art of the biographer but in Ackroyd 19s hands, no slouch himself at creative writing, it is not merely excusable, it is acceptable.
It is the passion that Ackroyd has for the subject matter that delivers the maximum impact. Each sentence, each paragraph is filled with admiration, adoration even which is constantly underlined and supported by the authors attention to detail. The secret behind this books success has to be that gathered here for posterity are two of England 19s greatest novelists who stand together in some form of literary waltz.
The people who formed the backdrop to his life, his mother, father, his first love, his wife, his children, his friends are all presented as the living breathing individuals from whom Dickens drew inspiration to create his famed characters. No stone is left unturned, no shying away from unpalatable truths. Dickens was, like us all, a flawed man, a genius perhaps, one who suffered extreme mood swings, a man who could, when the need arose, force his powerful nature onto others the better to get the result he desired.
The creative flourishes do not intrude on the process of honest presentation, they add garnish not gratuity. Reading is for pleasure and all too often biographers forget this principle as they deliver the meat without the gravy. With Ackroyd we get both. Ackroyd spares Dickens no blushes. His passion for the man does not deter his journalistic bent. Unpleasant things are forensically researched before being displayed. Dickens was a man who suffered from unimaginable bouts of nervous energy. To combat this and to prevent himself going insane he would go for walks. Not around the block but for up to as much as thirty miles a day walking for seven hours at a time. He could also be controlling and was almost certainly an adverse character in the development of his sons. And then there was his infatuations with females other than his wife. In this biography we meet a man who was unafraid of challenging the dreadful social class system of the day, highlighting the wrongs of deprivation, unconcerned by the taunts of those who saw his fiction as crude and commercial and not literary but also a man driven by his memory of poverty to succeed in life, to make his mark. He certainly did that. Dickens knew what he wanted and gods help those who got in his way. This isn 19t a good biography, this is a great one.
It is the passion that Ackroyd has for the subject matter that delivers the maximum impact. Each sentence, each paragraph is filled with admiration, adoration even which is constantly underlined and supported by the authors attention to detail. The secret behind this books success has to be that gathered here for posterity are two of England 19s greatest novelists who stand together in some form of literary waltz.
The people who formed the backdrop to his life, his mother, father, his first love, his wife, his children, his friends are all presented as the living breathing individuals from whom Dickens drew inspiration to create his famed characters. No stone is left unturned, no shying away from unpalatable truths. Dickens was, like us all, a flawed man, a genius perhaps, one who suffered extreme mood swings, a man who could, when the need arose, force his powerful nature onto others the better to get the result he desired.
The creative flourishes do not intrude on the process of honest presentation, they add garnish not gratuity. Reading is for pleasure and all too often biographers forget this principle as they deliver the meat without the gravy. With Ackroyd we get both. Ackroyd spares Dickens no blushes. His passion for the man does not deter his journalistic bent. Unpleasant things are forensically researched before being displayed. Dickens was a man who suffered from unimaginable bouts of nervous energy. To combat this and to prevent himself going insane he would go for walks. Not around the block but for up to as much as thirty miles a day walking for seven hours at a time. He could also be controlling and was almost certainly an adverse character in the development of his sons. And then there was his infatuations with females other than his wife. In this biography we meet a man who was unafraid of challenging the dreadful social class system of the day, highlighting the wrongs of deprivation, unconcerned by the taunts of those who saw his fiction as crude and commercial and not literary but also a man driven by his memory of poverty to succeed in life, to make his mark. He certainly did that. Dickens knew what he wanted and gods help those who got in his way. This isn 19t a good biography, this is a great one.
December 13, 2012
Originally published on my blog here in August 2001.
As the most popular writer of his age, and as a social campaigner, Charles Dickens had an immense influence which still shapes modern literature and the culture in which we live - his stories helped shape our ideas of the "traditional" Christmas, apart from the more difficult to trace effects of his writing about social issues.
The man who had this influence was extraordinary in himself as well. As a result, he has always been a magnet for biographers, from his friend John Forster onwards. Ackroyd's acclaimed biography concentrates on what formed Dickens' character, and how his life influenced his fiction.
For someone following a sedentary profession, Dickens had an interesting life, and was certainly an unusual personality. While he could often be the life and soul of any party, his self-centredness made him a difficult person to deal with. This is brought out strongly by Ackroyd, who is also particularly good at retreading the well worn path of his relationship between his life and work (especially his childhood and the probably platonic affair with Ellen Tiernan).
It is probably the case that to write this kind of biography you would need to be a fan, and this is certainly the case with Ackroyd, who likes certain of the novels far more than I do and hasn't really a bad word to say about any. This isn't really a failing, as there is no particular reason why people shouldn't have different opinions, but it does lead to an occasional loss of sympathy on the part of this reader.
Another minor problem with this biography, which reduces its usefulness as any kind of reference, is the lack of dated information. Not only is there no separate chronology of Dickens' life, but there are relatively few dates given in the text; to try to work out, say, the dates of the first and last appearances of Bleak House in serial form is extremely difficult.
As the most popular writer of his age, and as a social campaigner, Charles Dickens had an immense influence which still shapes modern literature and the culture in which we live - his stories helped shape our ideas of the "traditional" Christmas, apart from the more difficult to trace effects of his writing about social issues.
The man who had this influence was extraordinary in himself as well. As a result, he has always been a magnet for biographers, from his friend John Forster onwards. Ackroyd's acclaimed biography concentrates on what formed Dickens' character, and how his life influenced his fiction.
For someone following a sedentary profession, Dickens had an interesting life, and was certainly an unusual personality. While he could often be the life and soul of any party, his self-centredness made him a difficult person to deal with. This is brought out strongly by Ackroyd, who is also particularly good at retreading the well worn path of his relationship between his life and work (especially his childhood and the probably platonic affair with Ellen Tiernan).
It is probably the case that to write this kind of biography you would need to be a fan, and this is certainly the case with Ackroyd, who likes certain of the novels far more than I do and hasn't really a bad word to say about any. This isn't really a failing, as there is no particular reason why people shouldn't have different opinions, but it does lead to an occasional loss of sympathy on the part of this reader.
Another minor problem with this biography, which reduces its usefulness as any kind of reference, is the lack of dated information. Not only is there no separate chronology of Dickens' life, but there are relatively few dates given in the text; to try to work out, say, the dates of the first and last appearances of Bleak House in serial form is extremely difficult.
June 28, 2025
Peter Ackroyd’s Dickens is not just a biography—it’s an act of literary reincarnation. I read it in 2005, back when I was writing an article on Dickens for a small literature blog. I remember thinking it would be dry, scholarly, maybe useful at best. What I found instead was something magnetic: 1,200 pages of narrative that felt like walking arm-in-arm with Dickens himself down a foggy London street. Ackroyd doesn’t just tell us who Dickens was; he channels the man. His prose—flamboyant, dense, dramatic—mirrors Dickens’s own narrative exuberance. The book made me see how childhood trauma shaped the ghosts in A Christmas Carol, how obsessive walking through London birthed its grimy magic in Bleak House, how Dickens’s family life and fame both drove and devoured him. Ackroyd traces every strand—his strange, sad marriage; his secret affair with Ellen Ternan; his astonishing discipline; his darker obsessions with death, performance, and control. London itself becomes a living character, pulsing through the book with its alleys, prisons, and graveyards. Reading this was like being let into a private theatre where Dickens plays all the roles. I never finished the article I was writing back then—but I remember every twist of this book. Ackroyd’s Dickens isn’t a biography. It’s an intimate haunting.
June 19, 2022
Exactly what I was hoping for in a biography, if I'm honest. Nothing extraneous, lots of interesting information, and the writing style is easy and enthusiastic. This is an abridged version, so occasionally the writing can seem a little stilted where things have evidently been cut, but overall it's no big deal. Ackroyd is a great biographer and his love for his subject comes through in abundance.
This is a brilliant place to start if you want to get to know Dickens and his work a little better, which is my current goal. I studied Dickens's works at school, of course (Hard Times and Great Expectations, I believe) but as is the way of high school English classes, it wasn't a great time. I have been very unfair to Mr Dickens since, and I'm glad to find that my interest and enthusiasm for his work is growing as I get older. This book will provide a lot of context and analysis to keep in mind when I start picking up his works, and has even given me an idea of where I want to start. A brilliant tribute to a very complex man, and also filled with things I had absolutely no idea about -- like the fact that Dickens sold out theatres of screaming fans for his book readings. Who would have thought?
This is a brilliant place to start if you want to get to know Dickens and his work a little better, which is my current goal. I studied Dickens's works at school, of course (Hard Times and Great Expectations, I believe) but as is the way of high school English classes, it wasn't a great time. I have been very unfair to Mr Dickens since, and I'm glad to find that my interest and enthusiasm for his work is growing as I get older. This book will provide a lot of context and analysis to keep in mind when I start picking up his works, and has even given me an idea of where I want to start. A brilliant tribute to a very complex man, and also filled with things I had absolutely no idea about -- like the fact that Dickens sold out theatres of screaming fans for his book readings. Who would have thought?
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