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Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World
Acclaimed actor and writer Simon Callow offers a fresh perspective on one of the greatest novelists in the English language, Charles Dickens, in this lively, colorful biography.
Dickens was one of the first true celebrity authors. Thousands of fans in Britain and America eagerly awaited each new installment of his stories and flocked to see him on his legendary speaking tours. Not only did he create an incredible cast of characters on the page, but he was also a dazzling mimic and storyteller, and he wrote, stage-managed, and acted in plays for the public. Throughout his life, from his childhood performances in pubs to his legendarily powerful reading tours, Dickens was fanatical about the stage. Callow reveals Dickens’s genius on and off the page and offers a compelling insight into a life that was driven as much by performance and showmanship as by literature.
Dickens was one of the first true celebrity authors. Thousands of fans in Britain and America eagerly awaited each new installment of his stories and flocked to see him on his legendary speaking tours. Not only did he create an incredible cast of characters on the page, but he was also a dazzling mimic and storyteller, and he wrote, stage-managed, and acted in plays for the public. Throughout his life, from his childhood performances in pubs to his legendarily powerful reading tours, Dickens was fanatical about the stage. Callow reveals Dickens’s genius on and off the page and offers a compelling insight into a life that was driven as much by performance and showmanship as by literature.
384 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2012
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December 21, 2024
Did you study the works of Charles Dickens at school? Was he pushed down your throat so much that you now yawn when you hear his name? Then please, think again. Don't think of a staid Victorian writer, closeted in his room writing lengthy, boring screeds and rarely venturing out. Dickens was the life and soul of the party; irrepressible and exuberant. He was essentially a showman; an entertainer. He was, complete in himself, Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World.
Ironically many of the previous generation (including myself) came to know and love Dickens after formal education. There was a gap between his contemporary popularity when he was clamoured after and mobbed by his fans, and more recent decades. In between he had been profoundly unfashionable and rather looked down on in literary circles. Even in his own lifetime he was never "quite a gentleman", and more often condescended to by the literary intelligentsia, but this did not stop him from being universally loved. Things have now turned full circle, and he is now both read and revered by all, with a plethora of biographies about him from every conceivable point of view.
Simon Callow acknowledges this curious development, and apologises for writing yet another biography of Charles Dickens. For is there really anything more to say? We have John Forster's Life of Charles Dickens - a 3 volume chronicle of Dickens by his greatest friend and mentor. We have Peter Ackroyd's masterly "Dickens" which was probably the first biography to set an author firmly within the cultural mores of his time. We have books by eminent scholars such as Michael Slater, and we have the bicentennial biography, written in 2012 by Claire Tomalin. Callow is keen to stress that Tomalin's book, Charles Dickens is entirely deserving of its enthusiastic literary reception. Yet the viewpoint of the two could hardly be more different. For Tomalin, theatre could only be a negative influence on the novels. She states that,
"Dickens's plots tend to the theatrical and the melodramatic"
as if this is self-evidently bad. But for Callow, Dickens's acting was what made him the writer he was, and what makes him unique. It provided the face-to-face relationship with his public, and in the process of developing his characters on stage, they became real in his mind.
Simon Callow is one of Britain's finest actors, and he has achieved recognition as a skilled essayist, and a biographer of both Charles Laughton and Orson Welles. In addition he is wonderfully talented as a natural raconteur. Combined with his lifetime's enthusiam for "The Inimitable", Callow has set out to show Charles Dickens, the entertainer, from a unique point of view. Staying closely to the letters and writings of Charles Dickens himself, Callow is keen to obtain his information first-hand, rather than from the secondary sources of previous biographers. He wants to be able to show his readers just how crucially important the theatre was in the life of this, one of our greatest storytellers. And as we read, we realise that for Dickens the theatre was truly an obsession. It is no wonder that his novels all have a theatrical element, or that the reader can "hear" the characters declaiming from the stage, because that is what they were doing - from the stage of Dickens's imagination.
We follow through Dickens's life story, some or all of which may be familiar to the reader. Callow vividly describes Dickens's early years as a child entertainer in Portsmouth, and it gradually becomes clear to the reader that Dickens only really came "alive" at such times, and at the theatre learning his trade as a mimic, memorising long tracts and mannerisms of his heroes in the minutest detail. He was complusive; a perfectionist, driving himself on to escape from what he saw as degradation and horror. He was not allowed to continue his education as his sister, Fanny, had. He felt this keenly as a betrayal by his parents, especially his mother, and his horror of working in the shoe-blacking factory, and his father's growing insolvency cut him to the quick, remaining as unresolved issues in his persona for the rest of his life, leading to his eventual death by overwork.
Such obsessive behaviour is well-known and repeatedly set down by Dickens biographers. What Simon Callow does however, is to set this firmly within the context and reality of Dicken's perceptions of the theatre. As we read, we become aware that writing was a consequence of having to earn a crust, and - dare I write this - second best. Dickens's true love was the theatre, about which he was fanatical. Here it was that Dickens learned important lessons, picking up his "streaky bacon" technique, as he called it, of alternating comic and tragic scenes so familiar in his stories, from the popular performances of his time. And of course he became the original "celebrity" author, with thousands of adoring fans from all walks of life attending his readings in Britain and the USA.
When he wrote, acted in and stage-managed plays, Dickens was in his element, and Simon Callow carefully chronicles each major episode and production, whether in a country house or a failing amateur theatre, interspersing it with snippets of Dickens's writing life and current quarrels (of which there were many and various!) with his publishers. Callow does not mince his words. We know that Dickens was exuberant and irrepressible. Apparently nobody who ever met him failed to notice his startling eyes. He had enormous energy and drive. But allied with this, he was also supremely confident, single-minded and self-willed. He did not suffer fools gladly - even when they were not really fools at all. There are shameful episodes in his life, such as the letter he wrote to the newspapers denoucing his wife, who had borne him 10 children. Callow describes this as,
"a hateful document, a calm dismissal of Catherine at every level... There is no great man who has ever so completely let himself down as Dickens at this moment... He never again saw Catherine with whom he had shared his life for 20 years... His subsequent relationship with Ellen Ternan was pursued furtively, unacknowledged by all except his very close associates."
No, it was never a good idea to get on the wrong side of Dickens.
It is interesting that these reflections on Charles Dickens, the writer, in the guise of an actor, are enabled by Simon Callow, the actor, in his guise as a writer. Both seem supremely talented in both areas. Simon Callow has made several tours performing the stories of Charles Dickens on stage - but in the persona of Charles Dickens, much as the great man did in his own lifetime. It is abundantly clear that, in common with many actors, Dickens felt the need to be completed by having contact with his audience. There are countless examples in the book, culminating in the rendering of an horrific scene from "Great Expectations", "Sikes and Nancy", which is generally acknowledged to be what killed him, his heart-rate increasing from 72 before the performance to 124 afterwards, as measured by his doctor.
Simon Callow is the natural choice for any casting director wanting someone to play the part of Dickens, whether a full-blown interpretation or merely in a cameo role. In addition to his tours, he has played Dickens in a one-man play by Peter Ackroyd - and even in a minor part in the TV series "Doctor Who". Callow revels in this, and quotes the actor Warren Mitchell when he was accused of changing the line in a play. His response was simply that he hadn't just written about the person, but, insistently, "I've been 'im".
It is on record that while writing a character's speech, Dickens would often leap up to check his own expression in the mirror. Simon Callow himself seems to exhibit multiphrenia, using psychodrama to reveal fascinating insights about Charles Dickens in this book,
"In a sense, Dickens was a greater mystery to his contemporaries than he is to us: they had absolutely no idea as to where it all came from - the darkness, the passionate empathy with the disadvantaged, the massive driving energy, the overwhelming willpower."
What the reader may be left wondering is, is this what Charles Dickens was also doing with his characters? Dickens himself becomes his characters. Is this possibly why his myriad creations seemed to take on a life of their own for him, one more real and precious to him than anything else?
Michael Slater, whom Simon Callow acknowledges in his foreword as, "the current doyen of Dickens studies", pays tribute to this book, with its unique insight and point of view,
"This is the book we have long been waiting for and only Simon Callow could have written it. The theatre was central to Dickens's life, and it needed a skilled biographer to do justice to the subject. Simon Callow rises superbly to the challenge and the result is a marvellous book that really deepens and enriches our understanding and enjoyment of Dickens."
And Simon Callow's final words?
"As long as men and women want to hear stories, Charles Dickens remains and will always be a leading player on the stage of our imagination."
Ironically many of the previous generation (including myself) came to know and love Dickens after formal education. There was a gap between his contemporary popularity when he was clamoured after and mobbed by his fans, and more recent decades. In between he had been profoundly unfashionable and rather looked down on in literary circles. Even in his own lifetime he was never "quite a gentleman", and more often condescended to by the literary intelligentsia, but this did not stop him from being universally loved. Things have now turned full circle, and he is now both read and revered by all, with a plethora of biographies about him from every conceivable point of view.
Simon Callow acknowledges this curious development, and apologises for writing yet another biography of Charles Dickens. For is there really anything more to say? We have John Forster's Life of Charles Dickens - a 3 volume chronicle of Dickens by his greatest friend and mentor. We have Peter Ackroyd's masterly "Dickens" which was probably the first biography to set an author firmly within the cultural mores of his time. We have books by eminent scholars such as Michael Slater, and we have the bicentennial biography, written in 2012 by Claire Tomalin. Callow is keen to stress that Tomalin's book, Charles Dickens is entirely deserving of its enthusiastic literary reception. Yet the viewpoint of the two could hardly be more different. For Tomalin, theatre could only be a negative influence on the novels. She states that,
"Dickens's plots tend to the theatrical and the melodramatic"
as if this is self-evidently bad. But for Callow, Dickens's acting was what made him the writer he was, and what makes him unique. It provided the face-to-face relationship with his public, and in the process of developing his characters on stage, they became real in his mind.
Simon Callow is one of Britain's finest actors, and he has achieved recognition as a skilled essayist, and a biographer of both Charles Laughton and Orson Welles. In addition he is wonderfully talented as a natural raconteur. Combined with his lifetime's enthusiam for "The Inimitable", Callow has set out to show Charles Dickens, the entertainer, from a unique point of view. Staying closely to the letters and writings of Charles Dickens himself, Callow is keen to obtain his information first-hand, rather than from the secondary sources of previous biographers. He wants to be able to show his readers just how crucially important the theatre was in the life of this, one of our greatest storytellers. And as we read, we realise that for Dickens the theatre was truly an obsession. It is no wonder that his novels all have a theatrical element, or that the reader can "hear" the characters declaiming from the stage, because that is what they were doing - from the stage of Dickens's imagination.
We follow through Dickens's life story, some or all of which may be familiar to the reader. Callow vividly describes Dickens's early years as a child entertainer in Portsmouth, and it gradually becomes clear to the reader that Dickens only really came "alive" at such times, and at the theatre learning his trade as a mimic, memorising long tracts and mannerisms of his heroes in the minutest detail. He was complusive; a perfectionist, driving himself on to escape from what he saw as degradation and horror. He was not allowed to continue his education as his sister, Fanny, had. He felt this keenly as a betrayal by his parents, especially his mother, and his horror of working in the shoe-blacking factory, and his father's growing insolvency cut him to the quick, remaining as unresolved issues in his persona for the rest of his life, leading to his eventual death by overwork.
Such obsessive behaviour is well-known and repeatedly set down by Dickens biographers. What Simon Callow does however, is to set this firmly within the context and reality of Dicken's perceptions of the theatre. As we read, we become aware that writing was a consequence of having to earn a crust, and - dare I write this - second best. Dickens's true love was the theatre, about which he was fanatical. Here it was that Dickens learned important lessons, picking up his "streaky bacon" technique, as he called it, of alternating comic and tragic scenes so familiar in his stories, from the popular performances of his time. And of course he became the original "celebrity" author, with thousands of adoring fans from all walks of life attending his readings in Britain and the USA.
When he wrote, acted in and stage-managed plays, Dickens was in his element, and Simon Callow carefully chronicles each major episode and production, whether in a country house or a failing amateur theatre, interspersing it with snippets of Dickens's writing life and current quarrels (of which there were many and various!) with his publishers. Callow does not mince his words. We know that Dickens was exuberant and irrepressible. Apparently nobody who ever met him failed to notice his startling eyes. He had enormous energy and drive. But allied with this, he was also supremely confident, single-minded and self-willed. He did not suffer fools gladly - even when they were not really fools at all. There are shameful episodes in his life, such as the letter he wrote to the newspapers denoucing his wife, who had borne him 10 children. Callow describes this as,
"a hateful document, a calm dismissal of Catherine at every level... There is no great man who has ever so completely let himself down as Dickens at this moment... He never again saw Catherine with whom he had shared his life for 20 years... His subsequent relationship with Ellen Ternan was pursued furtively, unacknowledged by all except his very close associates."
No, it was never a good idea to get on the wrong side of Dickens.
It is interesting that these reflections on Charles Dickens, the writer, in the guise of an actor, are enabled by Simon Callow, the actor, in his guise as a writer. Both seem supremely talented in both areas. Simon Callow has made several tours performing the stories of Charles Dickens on stage - but in the persona of Charles Dickens, much as the great man did in his own lifetime. It is abundantly clear that, in common with many actors, Dickens felt the need to be completed by having contact with his audience. There are countless examples in the book, culminating in the rendering of an horrific scene from "Great Expectations", "Sikes and Nancy", which is generally acknowledged to be what killed him, his heart-rate increasing from 72 before the performance to 124 afterwards, as measured by his doctor.
Simon Callow is the natural choice for any casting director wanting someone to play the part of Dickens, whether a full-blown interpretation or merely in a cameo role. In addition to his tours, he has played Dickens in a one-man play by Peter Ackroyd - and even in a minor part in the TV series "Doctor Who". Callow revels in this, and quotes the actor Warren Mitchell when he was accused of changing the line in a play. His response was simply that he hadn't just written about the person, but, insistently, "I've been 'im".
It is on record that while writing a character's speech, Dickens would often leap up to check his own expression in the mirror. Simon Callow himself seems to exhibit multiphrenia, using psychodrama to reveal fascinating insights about Charles Dickens in this book,
"In a sense, Dickens was a greater mystery to his contemporaries than he is to us: they had absolutely no idea as to where it all came from - the darkness, the passionate empathy with the disadvantaged, the massive driving energy, the overwhelming willpower."
What the reader may be left wondering is, is this what Charles Dickens was also doing with his characters? Dickens himself becomes his characters. Is this possibly why his myriad creations seemed to take on a life of their own for him, one more real and precious to him than anything else?
Michael Slater, whom Simon Callow acknowledges in his foreword as, "the current doyen of Dickens studies", pays tribute to this book, with its unique insight and point of view,
"This is the book we have long been waiting for and only Simon Callow could have written it. The theatre was central to Dickens's life, and it needed a skilled biographer to do justice to the subject. Simon Callow rises superbly to the challenge and the result is a marvellous book that really deepens and enriches our understanding and enjoyment of Dickens."
And Simon Callow's final words?
"As long as men and women want to hear stories, Charles Dickens remains and will always be a leading player on the stage of our imagination."
October 5, 2024
"Literature was his wife, the theatre his mistress, and to the very end he was tempted to leave the one for the other."
This engaging biography by actor and writer Simon Callow emphasizes the delight that Charles Dickens felt for the theatre. Dickens enjoyed amateur acting and imitating his favorite actors as a young man. He even had an acting audition scheduled at Covent Garden, but was forced by illness to cancel the audition. Dickens was known for how he was able to show so much emotion with his face and his extraordinary, expressive eyes.
Dickens was the stage manager and a superb actor in many plays that he and his friends performed to benefit charities. He also wrote plays himself or with a partner, writing both farces and melodramas. Dickens' readings of his literary works were legendary, and provided needed income for his large family. The readings and travel were so physically demanding in his later years that they contributed to his declining health.
Author Simon Callow is a popular actor who has played the role of Dickens on the stage. This biography puts less emphasis on Dickens' novels and journalism, and focuses more on his acting and stage managing. Callow also writes about how Dickens' high energy, humor, and talent made him such an extraordinary person on and off the stage. Unfortunately, Dickens' poor treatment of his wife as their marriage ended is a black mark on his remarkable life. Callow uses a warm conversational tone so this short biography is both informative and entertaining. 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 stars.
This engaging biography by actor and writer Simon Callow emphasizes the delight that Charles Dickens felt for the theatre. Dickens enjoyed amateur acting and imitating his favorite actors as a young man. He even had an acting audition scheduled at Covent Garden, but was forced by illness to cancel the audition. Dickens was known for how he was able to show so much emotion with his face and his extraordinary, expressive eyes.
Dickens was the stage manager and a superb actor in many plays that he and his friends performed to benefit charities. He also wrote plays himself or with a partner, writing both farces and melodramas. Dickens' readings of his literary works were legendary, and provided needed income for his large family. The readings and travel were so physically demanding in his later years that they contributed to his declining health.
Author Simon Callow is a popular actor who has played the role of Dickens on the stage. This biography puts less emphasis on Dickens' novels and journalism, and focuses more on his acting and stage managing. Callow also writes about how Dickens' high energy, humor, and talent made him such an extraordinary person on and off the stage. Unfortunately, Dickens' poor treatment of his wife as their marriage ended is a black mark on his remarkable life. Callow uses a warm conversational tone so this short biography is both informative and entertaining. 4.5 stars, rounded up to 5 stars.
July 28, 2022
Biography of Charles Dickens by British actor Simon Callow, focused on Dickens’s love of the theatre. It provides excellent insight into what Dickens was like as a person. It is not a comprehensive discussion of the writing of his books but mentions all fifteen in sequence. Dickens had a “difficult” personality in some respects, which comes through in his relationship with his wife and his publishers. The book covers his upbringing, travels, family, friendships, work ethic, and many lesser-known elements of his life.
It portrays the manner in which his childhood influenced the content of his books. His deep sympathy with the poor started early in his life. At age twelve, he worked 10-hour days in a boot-blacking factory while his father was being held in Marshalsea Debtor’s Prison. He wrote his first book as a series of monthly installments at age 24 and he was still writing when he died at age 58. Later in life, Dickens achieved even more acclaim due to his public readings. It is obvious that he loved the theatre and put a great deal of emotion and effort into these performances.
Simon Callow does a wonderful job narrating the audio book. His pacing is just right. He performs various accents – Scottish, Irish, American, various English regional accents, and a specific voice for Dickens himself. If you have never read a biography of Dickens, this book is a great starting point. It made me want to read more of Dickens’s books. I loved it!
It portrays the manner in which his childhood influenced the content of his books. His deep sympathy with the poor started early in his life. At age twelve, he worked 10-hour days in a boot-blacking factory while his father was being held in Marshalsea Debtor’s Prison. He wrote his first book as a series of monthly installments at age 24 and he was still writing when he died at age 58. Later in life, Dickens achieved even more acclaim due to his public readings. It is obvious that he loved the theatre and put a great deal of emotion and effort into these performances.
Simon Callow does a wonderful job narrating the audio book. His pacing is just right. He performs various accents – Scottish, Irish, American, various English regional accents, and a specific voice for Dickens himself. If you have never read a biography of Dickens, this book is a great starting point. It made me want to read more of Dickens’s books. I loved it!
June 7, 2024
“At his writing desk, he felt like an emperor; in the theatre, he felt like a god.”
I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. I was not expecting CHARLES DICKENS AND THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE WORLD to be as interesting and engaging as it was. And I was impressed by how good a writer actor Simon Callow is.
I especially enjoyed the connection Simon Callow makes between Dickens’s life and his love of theatre and theatricals. The integration of theatre performances at his home and traveling shows gives such insight into Dickens as a writer and as a person. It's a unique and enjoyable connection Mr. Callow uses to get the reader into the mind of this great writer. Mr. Callow does such a nice job getting into the mind of Dickens because he skillfully analyzes his work to get ideas about him as a person.
An unexpected delight in this text was reading about Dickens’s exuberant friendships. He loved his close friends dearly. They were integral to this life. Especially notable was his friendship with John Forster to whom, Dickens writes, “I look back with unmingled pleasure to every link which each ensuing week has added to the chain of our attachment.” John Forster was a constant presence in Dickens’ life, and he is in this book as well.
Quotes:
• “He was learning to wear a mask, to conceal his inner life, to rise above his circumstances.”
• “…he had learned, at an astonishingly early age, how to nourish his inner life, by observing and responding to the world around him.”
• “Everything that had happened to him conspired to make him what he became; every last detail of it fed into his work.”
• “…it is Ignorance and Want, the root causes, Dickens believed, of all the world’s malaise.”
• “Dickens’s performances were triumphs of mind over matter: real acting is about mind in matter.”
• “…in this brief life of ours, it is sad to do almost anything for the last time.”
• “Literature was his wife, the theatre his mistress, and to the very end he was tempted to leave the one for the other.”
• “It is one of the greatest of English Lives, both humbling and heart-warming, despite titanic flaws.”
One of the great strengths of this text is that Mr. Callow uses lots of primary sources. It makes the book feel relevant, vital, and in the here and now. The people in this book are alive in the present in his capable hands. Consider this description of Dickens’s laugh (written by one of his friends) and you cannot help but adore the man’s zest for life and companionship. “Right to the end, it is Dickens’s laughter that people remembered: ‘not poor, thin, arid, ambiguous laughter, that is ashamed of itself, that moves one feature, only of the face’, his friend Helps wrote, ‘but the largest and heartiest kind, irradiating his whole countenance, and compelling you to participate in his immense enjoyment of it.’”
In the text’s Forward Mr. Callow writes of Charles Dickens that he was “Human through and through, an inspiration and a bafflement.” Callow has successfully shown him to be just that in this wonderful book.
I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. I was not expecting CHARLES DICKENS AND THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE WORLD to be as interesting and engaging as it was. And I was impressed by how good a writer actor Simon Callow is.
I especially enjoyed the connection Simon Callow makes between Dickens’s life and his love of theatre and theatricals. The integration of theatre performances at his home and traveling shows gives such insight into Dickens as a writer and as a person. It's a unique and enjoyable connection Mr. Callow uses to get the reader into the mind of this great writer. Mr. Callow does such a nice job getting into the mind of Dickens because he skillfully analyzes his work to get ideas about him as a person.
An unexpected delight in this text was reading about Dickens’s exuberant friendships. He loved his close friends dearly. They were integral to this life. Especially notable was his friendship with John Forster to whom, Dickens writes, “I look back with unmingled pleasure to every link which each ensuing week has added to the chain of our attachment.” John Forster was a constant presence in Dickens’ life, and he is in this book as well.
Quotes:
• “He was learning to wear a mask, to conceal his inner life, to rise above his circumstances.”
• “…he had learned, at an astonishingly early age, how to nourish his inner life, by observing and responding to the world around him.”
• “Everything that had happened to him conspired to make him what he became; every last detail of it fed into his work.”
• “…it is Ignorance and Want, the root causes, Dickens believed, of all the world’s malaise.”
• “Dickens’s performances were triumphs of mind over matter: real acting is about mind in matter.”
• “…in this brief life of ours, it is sad to do almost anything for the last time.”
• “Literature was his wife, the theatre his mistress, and to the very end he was tempted to leave the one for the other.”
• “It is one of the greatest of English Lives, both humbling and heart-warming, despite titanic flaws.”
One of the great strengths of this text is that Mr. Callow uses lots of primary sources. It makes the book feel relevant, vital, and in the here and now. The people in this book are alive in the present in his capable hands. Consider this description of Dickens’s laugh (written by one of his friends) and you cannot help but adore the man’s zest for life and companionship. “Right to the end, it is Dickens’s laughter that people remembered: ‘not poor, thin, arid, ambiguous laughter, that is ashamed of itself, that moves one feature, only of the face’, his friend Helps wrote, ‘but the largest and heartiest kind, irradiating his whole countenance, and compelling you to participate in his immense enjoyment of it.’”
In the text’s Forward Mr. Callow writes of Charles Dickens that he was “Human through and through, an inspiration and a bafflement.” Callow has successfully shown him to be just that in this wonderful book.
February 20, 2022
Timed for publication to coincide with the 200th anniversary of his birth this superb book is a fascinating study of the great novelist, concentrating more on his life as an entertainer, ie in the theatre and in his public readings.
Fluently told with plenty of anecdotal tales Dickens comes to life and is obviously both a complex and emotional character. His love for the theatre and wish to be in the spotlight began at a young age and, after plenty of readings to his family and amateur dramatic productions (although professionally handled by himself who was the major domo on every production), he brought it to full fruition when he began his series of highly successful public readings.
However, his striving for perfection and his desire to bring something to the public that would both startle them as well as entertain them, ie the Sikes and Nancy scene, eventually proved his downfall. His advisors warned him against continuing the readings but he persisted ... and the result was his early death.
A well written and excellently paced book it proves to be a really enjoyable read and leaves the reader wanting more of Dickens' life and habits.
Fluently told with plenty of anecdotal tales Dickens comes to life and is obviously both a complex and emotional character. His love for the theatre and wish to be in the spotlight began at a young age and, after plenty of readings to his family and amateur dramatic productions (although professionally handled by himself who was the major domo on every production), he brought it to full fruition when he began his series of highly successful public readings.
However, his striving for perfection and his desire to bring something to the public that would both startle them as well as entertain them, ie the Sikes and Nancy scene, eventually proved his downfall. His advisors warned him against continuing the readings but he persisted ... and the result was his early death.
A well written and excellently paced book it proves to be a really enjoyable read and leaves the reader wanting more of Dickens' life and habits.
March 2, 2020
Audio
You might assume, at first glance, that this is a niche book about Dickens and the theatre - actually it's a popular general biography, with a bit more than a standard bio about Dickens' lifelong relationship with theatre. It's also about how a talented and flamboyant man with a huge ego and an eye for public sympathy made a country his stage - a country which purported to rule a large portion of the world at the time.
Claire Tomalin's was my first choice when I wanted to listen to an audio biography of Dickens after re-reading A Christmas Carol, but Callow's was on Scribd (as is the ebook), and Tomalin's wasn't. Callow is a lively and engaging reader who does excellent accents, as you'd expect from an actor of his calibre. (He doesn't do 'impressions' of women, something for which I've often seen GR reviews criticise male audiobook readers.) However, Callow reads very quickly, and even at my most alert, I had to listen on 0.8 speed to be able to absorb what was being said. For those who routinely listen to audiobooks on 1.5 speed, Callow's normal speed should be fine.
First, I was struck by how much I didn't know about Dickens. Over the last 30 years I'd read various encyclopaedia entries, and introductions, chronologies and notes to his novels, so I thought I knew his story but there's a lot those don't include - for which there is room in a 400-page biography.
I had an idea of his childhood as generally impoverished, as if he were one of Bob Cratchit's more robust kids, but actually the Dickenses seem to have been quite comfortable - thanks to paternal overspending, presumably - until his father ended up in debtor's prison (portrayed as a curious-sounding place where the family could in some ways live in less spartan conditions than they had been in the months previously at home). This was when Charles, aged 12, went to work in the infamous blacking factory. The job was found for him by a very middle-class family friend who admired the boy's intelligence and burgeoning theatrical talents, and who initially tried to let him work in a more comfortable than usual location in the building, separate from other boys doing the same work, although this soon proved impractical. Dickens was later able to go back to school at 14, although not a very good school. Whilst his outstanding abilities seem to have been apparent to all, he was not in a position to go to university. (Oxford and Cambridge were moribund at the time anyway, so probably no great loss academically - the benefits would have been connections and kudos.)
In any case, the careers which interested him did not, in the 19th century, demand a degree. He became first a solicitor's clerk, planned to audition as an actor (postponed due to a bad cold) and was then offered work as a journalist. He soon made a splash, with his dandyish dress, confrontational opinions and all-round talent, from making people laugh, to speculation that he was the best shorthand writer in the world. (Perhaps indicative of British imperial attitudes that best in Britain had to mean the best in the world?) The accounts of reporting from around the country before railways are fascinating: reliance on express and post-chaise services, and relays of reporters taking news back to the office.
Callow's account of Dickens' ongoing psychological suffering and indignation over his factory experience, and from his mother trying to force him back there (including direct quotes from Dickens' letters) lays it on thick in a way that would nowadays spark cries of 'check your privilege', that he had only experienced it for a short time, other kids were also special etc. Callow, writing in 2012, gives the sort of sympathy a close friend or therapist should provide in one-to-one conversation about this kind of frightening and wounding experience, but, for public material, after familiarity with late 2010s social media, it doesn't quite work. It could have been presented more sympathetically to a less indulgent public, by emphasising how it inspired Dickens as an adult, and led to empathic characterisations in his work that would appeal to all classes, and activism for better living conditions for millions. But, as it is, it also tacitly indicates that this is how Dickens' fellow-feeling for the poor, politics and charity connect with his massive ego - and suggests one reason for his two-dimensional view of women.
He could sometimes be persuaded to alter offensive portrayals in his books. Eliza Davis, one half of the Jewish couple who had moved into Dickens' old home on Tavistock Place, wrote to reproach him about Fagin. Subsequent editions of Oliver Twist were amended, and he created Rhea in Our Mutual Friend, a sympathetic Jewish character. Davis later sent him a Hebrew Bible in thanks. Similarly, a Mrs Hill, a woman with dwarfism, wrote to him about the character of Miss Mowcher whilst David Copperfield was still in progress in serial form - and as a result he changed the character and her trajectory. It was in his private life that Dickens seemed least open to change and least empathic.
One of the first things I knew about Dickens, beyond a few book titles and what he looked like, was a family legend, saying that a great-great grandmother sometimes used to meet Mrs Dickens in the streets at night, when they would each regularly go for walks to escape their husbands hitting them. Whilst it seemed distant and potentially apocryphal - and I worked out a few years later that the story was also geographically and temporally impossible - the idea always lingered of him as 'probably not a very nice man', even whilst he was obviously not unusual for his time. The short history of Dickens biographies in Callow's book indicates that this idea of Dickens-the-monster emerged in biographies from the 1930s onwards. Prior to that, he was more or less the subject of hagiography; it was after the deaths of his last surviving children that biographers began to poke at the skeletons in the cupboard.
Dickens is almost a paradigmatic example of what Jenny Offill called the 'art monster'. 'Almost' only because - whilst he was friends with other bestselling writers such as Thackeray and Wilkie Collins, and was a popular guest at functions, considered perhaps the best public speaker of the age - many of the intelligentsia of the day regarded him as an author for the masses, and "not quite a gentleman". Snobbery about him persisted into the mid-20th century; back when noted Dickens scholar and emeritus professor Michael Slater was a young man deciding on his PhD, Callow says, he was told that Dickens wasn't quite a fit subject for a doctorate.
Whilst, as Callow puts it, there were occasions when Dickens treated many of the real people around him like characters he controlled, it is his behaviour to his wife Catherine which now looks worst. There is nothing in this book saying that Dickens was physically violent towards Catherine. Callow is very sympathetic throughout to "poor Catherine" because of other problems in their relationship, however. Perhaps some of their problems were systemic - two people who perhaps should not have married in the first place, but they did because they lived in a society in which there was great pressure to marry early in adulthood to someone of a suitable background. Callow strongly implies that Catherine was a compromise candidate, and that despite flowery letters, Dickens never felt as strongly about her as he did about Maria Beadnell or about Catherine's younger sister Mary, idolising his memories of both as young women, while Catherine aged and grew larger and exhausted from numerous pregnancies. Middle-class wives were expected to stay at home without careers; there was no respectable, reliable contraception to be used as a norm within marriage, and women were encouraged to be dependent on and look up to their husbands. (Catherine's emotional 'neediness' was more overtly encouraged by society and culture than neediness is now.) Dickens' politics were radical in many areas - he talked elsewhere of poverty not being solved until "the general overthrow" and may have been close to Jacobinism - but he was notably not radical in his view of women and especially in the relationships he had with those closest to him. (He may have been closest to respecting Angela Burdett-Coutts, wealthy fellow patron of charities.) Men who strove to be more equal with their wives were very unusual, and even then it's the men who are often remembered more, such as John Stuart Mill. (Mill reportedly despised Dickens' mockery of women's rights in Bleak House.) From a modern perspective, the Dickenses should have divorced years earlier, before contempt set in - but divorce was very rare and scandalous. Dickens' public criticism of Catherine stood out as particularly unpleasant even to his contemporaries, such as this:
The statement had begun with the words ‘in the manly consideration towards Mrs Dickens which I owe to my wife …’ Commenting on the statement, the Liverpool Mercury went for the jugular:
This favourite of the public informs some hundreds of thousands of readers that the wife whom he has vowed to love and cherish has utterly failed to discharge the duties of a mother; and he further hints that her mind is disordered. If this is ‘manly consideration’ we should like to be favoured with a definition of unmanly selfishness and heartlessness.
Not long after I'd finished this book, it was discovered and reported in the press that Dickens had tried to have Catherine incarcerated in an asylum around the time he left her (and this was refused by doctors). This does not contradict Callow's portrait of Dickens, which is one of a man who was both damaged and damaging. He followed a pattern not uncommon among reforming public figures of the 19th and 20th centuries, of standing up for the downtrodden in his public work, whilst treating his wife and family badly; see also Tolstoy, R.D. Laing...
This is an effective portrait of a complicated individual, and Dickens' blend of empathy and overweening ego appear in other contexts. His letter for a charitable institution for "fallen women" which he sponsored was probably unusually insightful and sympathetic for its time, but it is also full of material now understood to be bad in such a context, such as telling marginalised people how they feel, and sounding patronising and overly prescriptive. He fancied himself an expert on mesmerism, and what would now be called an amateur psychotherapist; during a holiday in Switzerland with his wife Catherine, he became embroiled in hours-long conversations supporting another troubled married woman, on call round the clock, and continued contact with her for some time afterwards. He imposed boundaries only if and when he felt like it. "The poor people he tried to help were not his clients but in some ways his very self."
Dickens' interest in the stage had a great impact on his later life: due to his meeting actress and secret mistress Ellen Ternan, for whom he left Catherine, and his embracing of the public wish for regular reading tours. He seems to have fed off public acclaim, and his sales were largely unaffected by the reprimands during his separation. It seems that he wore himself out with ever-more dramatic readings; with the train crash he tried to keep secret due to its connection with Ellen; with another tour of America just when he needed a rest. (America, of which he'd had such high hopes as a young man for its egalitarian constitution and republic, only on his first visit to be disillusioned by slavery, by the state of its prisons, its press and its poor and the intrusive celebrity culture - concluding he preferred the British liberal monarchy after all.)
There is so much to say about the man and how he affected those around him, it's easy to neglect the books, although there are so many - and so many of them still considered must-read classics. (I've read seven Dickens novels, yet still there are great-books lists on which I haven't read any or some of the Dickens books listed. To what other author could that apply?) Despite his apparently ready imagination, he often wrote under stressful conditions which it is easy for present day jobbing writers to sympathise with, in an area of work now become precarious again after some stability in the 20th century. He "never wrote without a printer at his heels and often failed to write the requisite number of words, worrying his inspiration had dried up". Money would be deducted for a short word count, and copyright was shaky. However, the first book he found truly difficult to write seems to have been Barnaby Rudge (1841, aged 29). Writing retreats were not really his thing. Whilst he found as many do, that "mental exertion must be counteracted by bodily fatigue" and he loved holidays in the Highlands and other mountains, he could only write in an isolated place for a week or two; he seemed to need London, especially London walks, as part of his process. (His night walks, intense intellect and energy, flamboyant dress, and interest in the lower orders are reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes: was Dickens part of the inspiration - or were both merely a recognisable Victorian type?)
His wish to control extended to other examples of his writing - and beyond the grave, as he assiduously burned correspondence, including letters received, in the later years of his life. Despite the gaps this leaves, Callow says that research means that he is now less of a mystery to the public, 200 years after his birth, than he was to his contemporaries.
Dickens is embodied in the reading here, as much as described - as a man of almost superhuman energy: all these books, walks, plays, speeches, functions, tours, holidays, children, friendships, enmities, emotions. Exhausting to be around, no doubt. A pioneering kind of celebrity who "became the embodiment of the national spirit", as no-one quite could now there are so many more voices - but who stood for a still-recognisable concern: "widespread unease at the way capitalism was evolving and the loss of community". (How real, even in his time, was the sense of community in his novels which some nostalgics hark back to?) But even he ran out of energy to embody these ideas - though some might now be thankful that at least Catherine and others finally got a rest from him.
During his 58 years, there was huge change in Britain: he could he could literally remember when all this was fields - when he was a boy, hay was still made near Camden Town, where his family lived. Snowiness, we learn, was not an early Victorian phenomenon - the Christmases of the 1830s-40s were notably mild; the picture-perfect snowy Christmases of his fiction recalled those of his childhood in the 1810s-20s.
(Listened Jan 2019; review finished Feb 2020 from year-old draft)
You might assume, at first glance, that this is a niche book about Dickens and the theatre - actually it's a popular general biography, with a bit more than a standard bio about Dickens' lifelong relationship with theatre. It's also about how a talented and flamboyant man with a huge ego and an eye for public sympathy made a country his stage - a country which purported to rule a large portion of the world at the time.
Claire Tomalin's was my first choice when I wanted to listen to an audio biography of Dickens after re-reading A Christmas Carol, but Callow's was on Scribd (as is the ebook), and Tomalin's wasn't. Callow is a lively and engaging reader who does excellent accents, as you'd expect from an actor of his calibre. (He doesn't do 'impressions' of women, something for which I've often seen GR reviews criticise male audiobook readers.) However, Callow reads very quickly, and even at my most alert, I had to listen on 0.8 speed to be able to absorb what was being said. For those who routinely listen to audiobooks on 1.5 speed, Callow's normal speed should be fine.
First, I was struck by how much I didn't know about Dickens. Over the last 30 years I'd read various encyclopaedia entries, and introductions, chronologies and notes to his novels, so I thought I knew his story but there's a lot those don't include - for which there is room in a 400-page biography.
I had an idea of his childhood as generally impoverished, as if he were one of Bob Cratchit's more robust kids, but actually the Dickenses seem to have been quite comfortable - thanks to paternal overspending, presumably - until his father ended up in debtor's prison (portrayed as a curious-sounding place where the family could in some ways live in less spartan conditions than they had been in the months previously at home). This was when Charles, aged 12, went to work in the infamous blacking factory. The job was found for him by a very middle-class family friend who admired the boy's intelligence and burgeoning theatrical talents, and who initially tried to let him work in a more comfortable than usual location in the building, separate from other boys doing the same work, although this soon proved impractical. Dickens was later able to go back to school at 14, although not a very good school. Whilst his outstanding abilities seem to have been apparent to all, he was not in a position to go to university. (Oxford and Cambridge were moribund at the time anyway, so probably no great loss academically - the benefits would have been connections and kudos.)
In any case, the careers which interested him did not, in the 19th century, demand a degree. He became first a solicitor's clerk, planned to audition as an actor (postponed due to a bad cold) and was then offered work as a journalist. He soon made a splash, with his dandyish dress, confrontational opinions and all-round talent, from making people laugh, to speculation that he was the best shorthand writer in the world. (Perhaps indicative of British imperial attitudes that best in Britain had to mean the best in the world?) The accounts of reporting from around the country before railways are fascinating: reliance on express and post-chaise services, and relays of reporters taking news back to the office.
Callow's account of Dickens' ongoing psychological suffering and indignation over his factory experience, and from his mother trying to force him back there (including direct quotes from Dickens' letters) lays it on thick in a way that would nowadays spark cries of 'check your privilege', that he had only experienced it for a short time, other kids were also special etc. Callow, writing in 2012, gives the sort of sympathy a close friend or therapist should provide in one-to-one conversation about this kind of frightening and wounding experience, but, for public material, after familiarity with late 2010s social media, it doesn't quite work. It could have been presented more sympathetically to a less indulgent public, by emphasising how it inspired Dickens as an adult, and led to empathic characterisations in his work that would appeal to all classes, and activism for better living conditions for millions. But, as it is, it also tacitly indicates that this is how Dickens' fellow-feeling for the poor, politics and charity connect with his massive ego - and suggests one reason for his two-dimensional view of women.
He could sometimes be persuaded to alter offensive portrayals in his books. Eliza Davis, one half of the Jewish couple who had moved into Dickens' old home on Tavistock Place, wrote to reproach him about Fagin. Subsequent editions of Oliver Twist were amended, and he created Rhea in Our Mutual Friend, a sympathetic Jewish character. Davis later sent him a Hebrew Bible in thanks. Similarly, a Mrs Hill, a woman with dwarfism, wrote to him about the character of Miss Mowcher whilst David Copperfield was still in progress in serial form - and as a result he changed the character and her trajectory. It was in his private life that Dickens seemed least open to change and least empathic.
One of the first things I knew about Dickens, beyond a few book titles and what he looked like, was a family legend, saying that a great-great grandmother sometimes used to meet Mrs Dickens in the streets at night, when they would each regularly go for walks to escape their husbands hitting them. Whilst it seemed distant and potentially apocryphal - and I worked out a few years later that the story was also geographically and temporally impossible - the idea always lingered of him as 'probably not a very nice man', even whilst he was obviously not unusual for his time. The short history of Dickens biographies in Callow's book indicates that this idea of Dickens-the-monster emerged in biographies from the 1930s onwards. Prior to that, he was more or less the subject of hagiography; it was after the deaths of his last surviving children that biographers began to poke at the skeletons in the cupboard.
Dickens is almost a paradigmatic example of what Jenny Offill called the 'art monster'. 'Almost' only because - whilst he was friends with other bestselling writers such as Thackeray and Wilkie Collins, and was a popular guest at functions, considered perhaps the best public speaker of the age - many of the intelligentsia of the day regarded him as an author for the masses, and "not quite a gentleman". Snobbery about him persisted into the mid-20th century; back when noted Dickens scholar and emeritus professor Michael Slater was a young man deciding on his PhD, Callow says, he was told that Dickens wasn't quite a fit subject for a doctorate.
Whilst, as Callow puts it, there were occasions when Dickens treated many of the real people around him like characters he controlled, it is his behaviour to his wife Catherine which now looks worst. There is nothing in this book saying that Dickens was physically violent towards Catherine. Callow is very sympathetic throughout to "poor Catherine" because of other problems in their relationship, however. Perhaps some of their problems were systemic - two people who perhaps should not have married in the first place, but they did because they lived in a society in which there was great pressure to marry early in adulthood to someone of a suitable background. Callow strongly implies that Catherine was a compromise candidate, and that despite flowery letters, Dickens never felt as strongly about her as he did about Maria Beadnell or about Catherine's younger sister Mary, idolising his memories of both as young women, while Catherine aged and grew larger and exhausted from numerous pregnancies. Middle-class wives were expected to stay at home without careers; there was no respectable, reliable contraception to be used as a norm within marriage, and women were encouraged to be dependent on and look up to their husbands. (Catherine's emotional 'neediness' was more overtly encouraged by society and culture than neediness is now.) Dickens' politics were radical in many areas - he talked elsewhere of poverty not being solved until "the general overthrow" and may have been close to Jacobinism - but he was notably not radical in his view of women and especially in the relationships he had with those closest to him. (He may have been closest to respecting Angela Burdett-Coutts, wealthy fellow patron of charities.) Men who strove to be more equal with their wives were very unusual, and even then it's the men who are often remembered more, such as John Stuart Mill. (Mill reportedly despised Dickens' mockery of women's rights in Bleak House.) From a modern perspective, the Dickenses should have divorced years earlier, before contempt set in - but divorce was very rare and scandalous. Dickens' public criticism of Catherine stood out as particularly unpleasant even to his contemporaries, such as this:
The statement had begun with the words ‘in the manly consideration towards Mrs Dickens which I owe to my wife …’ Commenting on the statement, the Liverpool Mercury went for the jugular:
This favourite of the public informs some hundreds of thousands of readers that the wife whom he has vowed to love and cherish has utterly failed to discharge the duties of a mother; and he further hints that her mind is disordered. If this is ‘manly consideration’ we should like to be favoured with a definition of unmanly selfishness and heartlessness.
Not long after I'd finished this book, it was discovered and reported in the press that Dickens had tried to have Catherine incarcerated in an asylum around the time he left her (and this was refused by doctors). This does not contradict Callow's portrait of Dickens, which is one of a man who was both damaged and damaging. He followed a pattern not uncommon among reforming public figures of the 19th and 20th centuries, of standing up for the downtrodden in his public work, whilst treating his wife and family badly; see also Tolstoy, R.D. Laing...
This is an effective portrait of a complicated individual, and Dickens' blend of empathy and overweening ego appear in other contexts. His letter for a charitable institution for "fallen women" which he sponsored was probably unusually insightful and sympathetic for its time, but it is also full of material now understood to be bad in such a context, such as telling marginalised people how they feel, and sounding patronising and overly prescriptive. He fancied himself an expert on mesmerism, and what would now be called an amateur psychotherapist; during a holiday in Switzerland with his wife Catherine, he became embroiled in hours-long conversations supporting another troubled married woman, on call round the clock, and continued contact with her for some time afterwards. He imposed boundaries only if and when he felt like it. "The poor people he tried to help were not his clients but in some ways his very self."
Dickens' interest in the stage had a great impact on his later life: due to his meeting actress and secret mistress Ellen Ternan, for whom he left Catherine, and his embracing of the public wish for regular reading tours. He seems to have fed off public acclaim, and his sales were largely unaffected by the reprimands during his separation. It seems that he wore himself out with ever-more dramatic readings; with the train crash he tried to keep secret due to its connection with Ellen; with another tour of America just when he needed a rest. (America, of which he'd had such high hopes as a young man for its egalitarian constitution and republic, only on his first visit to be disillusioned by slavery, by the state of its prisons, its press and its poor and the intrusive celebrity culture - concluding he preferred the British liberal monarchy after all.)
There is so much to say about the man and how he affected those around him, it's easy to neglect the books, although there are so many - and so many of them still considered must-read classics. (I've read seven Dickens novels, yet still there are great-books lists on which I haven't read any or some of the Dickens books listed. To what other author could that apply?) Despite his apparently ready imagination, he often wrote under stressful conditions which it is easy for present day jobbing writers to sympathise with, in an area of work now become precarious again after some stability in the 20th century. He "never wrote without a printer at his heels and often failed to write the requisite number of words, worrying his inspiration had dried up". Money would be deducted for a short word count, and copyright was shaky. However, the first book he found truly difficult to write seems to have been Barnaby Rudge (1841, aged 29). Writing retreats were not really his thing. Whilst he found as many do, that "mental exertion must be counteracted by bodily fatigue" and he loved holidays in the Highlands and other mountains, he could only write in an isolated place for a week or two; he seemed to need London, especially London walks, as part of his process. (His night walks, intense intellect and energy, flamboyant dress, and interest in the lower orders are reminiscent of Sherlock Holmes: was Dickens part of the inspiration - or were both merely a recognisable Victorian type?)
His wish to control extended to other examples of his writing - and beyond the grave, as he assiduously burned correspondence, including letters received, in the later years of his life. Despite the gaps this leaves, Callow says that research means that he is now less of a mystery to the public, 200 years after his birth, than he was to his contemporaries.
Dickens is embodied in the reading here, as much as described - as a man of almost superhuman energy: all these books, walks, plays, speeches, functions, tours, holidays, children, friendships, enmities, emotions. Exhausting to be around, no doubt. A pioneering kind of celebrity who "became the embodiment of the national spirit", as no-one quite could now there are so many more voices - but who stood for a still-recognisable concern: "widespread unease at the way capitalism was evolving and the loss of community". (How real, even in his time, was the sense of community in his novels which some nostalgics hark back to?) But even he ran out of energy to embody these ideas - though some might now be thankful that at least Catherine and others finally got a rest from him.
During his 58 years, there was huge change in Britain: he could he could literally remember when all this was fields - when he was a boy, hay was still made near Camden Town, where his family lived. Snowiness, we learn, was not an early Victorian phenomenon - the Christmases of the 1830s-40s were notably mild; the picture-perfect snowy Christmases of his fiction recalled those of his childhood in the 1810s-20s.
(Listened Jan 2019; review finished Feb 2020 from year-old draft)
October 12, 2013
Michael Slater: encyclopaedic, hardcore. Claire Tomalin: thorough, concisely packed. Simon Callow: lightweight, fluffy. Mr. Callow has played Dickens on the stage and in film, and apparently thinks about Dickens to an unhealthy extent. Rather than writing a book comparing his own Greatness to Dickens, or dwelling entirely on Dickens and the Stage (as hinted the hardback subtitle for this book, stripped in paperback), he wrote a breezy bio, working in all the necessary facts about Chaz in a way that bypasses all the mostly interesting things, like the composition of his works, a close analysis of the works, or loving lingerings on his works. Dickens was a terrible arranger for the stage: his choice of material either unfunny farce, esoteric unfunny farce, or appalling melodrama. He was an excellent helper and thespian, however, and found his calling performing outrageously over the top readings of his own works, sometimes while half-dead from agonising foot pain or other internal ailments. I always find it remarkable quite how quickly Dickens deteriorated in the last few years, how his penchant for relentless toil turned him into a senile, collapsing wreck before his sixtieth birthday. Callow dwells on these facts too, while being fair about the Inimitable’s weakness for corny theatricality. This is a serviceable, decent bio, but Michael Slater is the man to read for a proper Dickensian insight.
June 22, 2020
I recently rewatched “The Mystery of Charles Dickens,” a recording of the one-man play written by Peter Ackroyd (whose biography of DICKENS is on my Reading List) and featuring Simon Callow. It is a stunning work that briefly allows me to feel as if I was listening to Charles Dickens as he reflected on his life (including his Readings tours).
Viewing this production ... which is available on DVD ... generated an interest in reading Callow’s book, CHARLES DICKENS AND THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE WORLD. After all, I enjoyed his first volume about the life of Orson Welles. Yet, I was bothered by some indifferent reviews and remarks that it is too slanted to the theatrical side of Dickens when it was a minor part of his life.
For me, those comments were entirely inaccurate.
Simon Callow mentions near the end of the book that, for Charles Dickens, Literature was his wife and the Theatre was his mistress. My readings of Dickens’ works so far makes me a firm believer of that statement.
Very recently, I read short plays written by Dickens, and THE FROZEN DEEP in which Dickens contributed to the work of Wilkie Collins and performed as the central character on stage in benefit theatrical events. Obviously, Dickens had a strong interest in the theatre. According to Callow, this manifested itself in theatrical performances, the famous Reading tours that were so deleterious to his health, and possibly his flamboyant lifestyle (at least regarding his attire). Dickens gained energy from directly connecting with his public.
Of course, his theatrical fascination was also in evidence in his best written novels. BLEAK HOUSE is a masterpiece of theatrical achievement while THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY has so many moments that brought tears to my eyes, loud laughter and, twice, applause! It even has the Crummles Theatre Troupe, and there is no doubt about how deeply the writer held theatrical experiences in his affection.
I was very much impressed by Callow’s overview of the life of Charles Dickens. For the Reader who wants to know more than the standard documentary visitations of the writer’s life, but doesn’t want to invest time in epic volumes that detail what Dickens had for breakfast, CHARLES DICKENS AND THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE WORLD is perfect. Significant life events are covered along with observations of what may have been psychological developers of his personality.
Initially, my one worry was that Callow would reveal too many of the plot details of Dickens’ works. As I write this, I still have GREAT EXPECTATIONS and OUR MUTUAL FRIEND left to read for the first time, and the travel books. I didn’t want to have major plot points revealed that would reduce my reading pleasure. For the most part, I needn’t have worried. The overviews were usually quite general, and concentrated on their reception by the critics and the reading public. For GREAT EXPECTATIONS, though, Callow does mention the two endings. While I would rather not have had them included, they certainly provided insight into the story elements Charles Dickens considered ... and I have already watched multiple film versions of GREAT EXPECTATIONS through the years.
If the world has ever seen the like of Charles Dickens again, I am unaware of it. The best of his writing creeps under the skin and becomes an intimate part of the Reader. While I am able to enjoy Dickens’ written works, Callow had me longing for the opportunity to see Dickens on the stage. His Readings must have been an event never to be forgotten by the attendees.
In the meantime, I do have my DVD copy of “The Mystery of Charles Dickens” to enjoy over and over again.
Viewing this production ... which is available on DVD ... generated an interest in reading Callow’s book, CHARLES DICKENS AND THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE WORLD. After all, I enjoyed his first volume about the life of Orson Welles. Yet, I was bothered by some indifferent reviews and remarks that it is too slanted to the theatrical side of Dickens when it was a minor part of his life.
For me, those comments were entirely inaccurate.
Simon Callow mentions near the end of the book that, for Charles Dickens, Literature was his wife and the Theatre was his mistress. My readings of Dickens’ works so far makes me a firm believer of that statement.
Very recently, I read short plays written by Dickens, and THE FROZEN DEEP in which Dickens contributed to the work of Wilkie Collins and performed as the central character on stage in benefit theatrical events. Obviously, Dickens had a strong interest in the theatre. According to Callow, this manifested itself in theatrical performances, the famous Reading tours that were so deleterious to his health, and possibly his flamboyant lifestyle (at least regarding his attire). Dickens gained energy from directly connecting with his public.
Of course, his theatrical fascination was also in evidence in his best written novels. BLEAK HOUSE is a masterpiece of theatrical achievement while THE LIFE AND ADVENTURES OF NICHOLAS NICKLEBY has so many moments that brought tears to my eyes, loud laughter and, twice, applause! It even has the Crummles Theatre Troupe, and there is no doubt about how deeply the writer held theatrical experiences in his affection.
I was very much impressed by Callow’s overview of the life of Charles Dickens. For the Reader who wants to know more than the standard documentary visitations of the writer’s life, but doesn’t want to invest time in epic volumes that detail what Dickens had for breakfast, CHARLES DICKENS AND THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE WORLD is perfect. Significant life events are covered along with observations of what may have been psychological developers of his personality.
Initially, my one worry was that Callow would reveal too many of the plot details of Dickens’ works. As I write this, I still have GREAT EXPECTATIONS and OUR MUTUAL FRIEND left to read for the first time, and the travel books. I didn’t want to have major plot points revealed that would reduce my reading pleasure. For the most part, I needn’t have worried. The overviews were usually quite general, and concentrated on their reception by the critics and the reading public. For GREAT EXPECTATIONS, though, Callow does mention the two endings. While I would rather not have had them included, they certainly provided insight into the story elements Charles Dickens considered ... and I have already watched multiple film versions of GREAT EXPECTATIONS through the years.
If the world has ever seen the like of Charles Dickens again, I am unaware of it. The best of his writing creeps under the skin and becomes an intimate part of the Reader. While I am able to enjoy Dickens’ written works, Callow had me longing for the opportunity to see Dickens on the stage. His Readings must have been an event never to be forgotten by the attendees.
In the meantime, I do have my DVD copy of “The Mystery of Charles Dickens” to enjoy over and over again.
December 11, 2016
An actor writes a biography about another actor whose role he played. The former is an actor who happened to be writer, the latter a writer whose inspiration came from his passion for acting. The former is Simon Callow, the latter is Charles Dickens.
What we have is a view into the life of Dickens where he is seen as the quintessential actor, able to play many parts, drawing his characters by acting them out, and later dramatizing the characters from his novels to make a fortune as an itinerant reader, whose reading schedule finally wore him down to the point of death.
Despite his father’s incarceration in debtor’s prison and Dickens being forced to leave school and work in a boot-blacking factory for two years at the age of 10, for the most part Charles Dickens had a comfortable middle class life. He also enjoyed early success with his work (I did not see any reference to a rejection slip from a publisher) and after that his life was on an upward trajectory. Except for the modest success of The Old Curiosity Shop, all his novels were best sellers. But always, even with successful people, there is the tragic flaw, and Dickens’ titanic flaw was his manic personality that drove him to extremes in everything he did: fathering 10 children, multi-tasking with amateur theatre, walking miles a day and night to observe life in the nooks and crannies of London from which he extracted his caricature-like characters and larger than life stories, writing, editing, running a magazine, managing a home for homeless young women, and finally undertaking a punishing reading schedule on both sides of the Atlantic. His mania also gave rise to a controlling personality. Wives, mistresses, children, publishers, employees, even friends, all bowed to his will, and when they didn’t, he excoriated them, often in public. His public denouncement of his wife Catherine, who bore him all his children and suffered his manic personality through his formative years, earned him the wrath of the literary establishment, although it didn’t lose him any fans. Ellen Ternan, his mistress, lived a shadow life in order to keep the company of her lover. Neither wife nor mistress showed up at his funeral.
And yet Dickens championed the law of copyright on both sides of the Atlantic where it did not exist, he pleaded the plight of orphans and the working poor, railed against government, psychoanalysed friends who had ailments that couldn’t be cured through existing medicine; on his visits abroad, he made it a point to visit orphanages, morgues, prisons and hospitals to observe and to uplift where possible, he pioneered the concept of “writer as entertainer” in the three-hour readings he gave which were constantly sold-out. He espoused a liberal monarchy and believed that free speech in America was a sham, he supported his derelict father and always earned to pay for his large family, constantly bailing them out of financial minefields. Tragedy was his constant companion: his wife’s sister Mary, who had a spiritual connection with him, died young and cast an eternal cloud over the writer, his youngest daughter died suddenly, other children died young, many of his literary and theatre friends passed away during his lifetime.
In his later years he integrated the literary with the theatrical to run the Readings, where he played the roles of the characters he created: Micawber, Sykes, Fagin, Scrooge - he had a great list to pick from. If literature was his wife, then theatre was his mistress. And yet his flaw here was to run on adrenaline, for success in his performances was “mind over matter,” while professional actors work on “mind in matter.” The Readings ruined his health: his legs gave way, his voice gave way and he aged far ahead of the 58 years he was at the time of his death.
The author tends to glorify Dickens and raise him to mythic status, and that is the flaw in this book for it moves beyond the objective into the subjective and sentimental, much like the novels of the great author. And yet, when we look upon his life, it appears to be one totally consumed by his art at the expense of friends and family
One can’t help but wonder whether Charles Dickens would have been successful in the 21st century, where the serialized novel is extinct, magazines struggle to hold their own, the blog tour has replaced author readings, and brevity is favoured over the voluminous. One can but wonder...
What we have is a view into the life of Dickens where he is seen as the quintessential actor, able to play many parts, drawing his characters by acting them out, and later dramatizing the characters from his novels to make a fortune as an itinerant reader, whose reading schedule finally wore him down to the point of death.
Despite his father’s incarceration in debtor’s prison and Dickens being forced to leave school and work in a boot-blacking factory for two years at the age of 10, for the most part Charles Dickens had a comfortable middle class life. He also enjoyed early success with his work (I did not see any reference to a rejection slip from a publisher) and after that his life was on an upward trajectory. Except for the modest success of The Old Curiosity Shop, all his novels were best sellers. But always, even with successful people, there is the tragic flaw, and Dickens’ titanic flaw was his manic personality that drove him to extremes in everything he did: fathering 10 children, multi-tasking with amateur theatre, walking miles a day and night to observe life in the nooks and crannies of London from which he extracted his caricature-like characters and larger than life stories, writing, editing, running a magazine, managing a home for homeless young women, and finally undertaking a punishing reading schedule on both sides of the Atlantic. His mania also gave rise to a controlling personality. Wives, mistresses, children, publishers, employees, even friends, all bowed to his will, and when they didn’t, he excoriated them, often in public. His public denouncement of his wife Catherine, who bore him all his children and suffered his manic personality through his formative years, earned him the wrath of the literary establishment, although it didn’t lose him any fans. Ellen Ternan, his mistress, lived a shadow life in order to keep the company of her lover. Neither wife nor mistress showed up at his funeral.
And yet Dickens championed the law of copyright on both sides of the Atlantic where it did not exist, he pleaded the plight of orphans and the working poor, railed against government, psychoanalysed friends who had ailments that couldn’t be cured through existing medicine; on his visits abroad, he made it a point to visit orphanages, morgues, prisons and hospitals to observe and to uplift where possible, he pioneered the concept of “writer as entertainer” in the three-hour readings he gave which were constantly sold-out. He espoused a liberal monarchy and believed that free speech in America was a sham, he supported his derelict father and always earned to pay for his large family, constantly bailing them out of financial minefields. Tragedy was his constant companion: his wife’s sister Mary, who had a spiritual connection with him, died young and cast an eternal cloud over the writer, his youngest daughter died suddenly, other children died young, many of his literary and theatre friends passed away during his lifetime.
In his later years he integrated the literary with the theatrical to run the Readings, where he played the roles of the characters he created: Micawber, Sykes, Fagin, Scrooge - he had a great list to pick from. If literature was his wife, then theatre was his mistress. And yet his flaw here was to run on adrenaline, for success in his performances was “mind over matter,” while professional actors work on “mind in matter.” The Readings ruined his health: his legs gave way, his voice gave way and he aged far ahead of the 58 years he was at the time of his death.
The author tends to glorify Dickens and raise him to mythic status, and that is the flaw in this book for it moves beyond the objective into the subjective and sentimental, much like the novels of the great author. And yet, when we look upon his life, it appears to be one totally consumed by his art at the expense of friends and family
One can’t help but wonder whether Charles Dickens would have been successful in the 21st century, where the serialized novel is extinct, magazines struggle to hold their own, the blog tour has replaced author readings, and brevity is favoured over the voluminous. One can but wonder...
March 26, 2019
Make it either your first or your last Dickens biography -- it may be less detailed than many others, but it gets a very good grip of Charles Dickens as a person and leading man throughout his (mostly) well-staged life. Simon Callow understands better than other authors the overwhelming desire to act and to be applauded that underlined practically all of Dickens's existence.
February 22, 2013
Exuberant and boisterous…
Callow has written a superbly readable and affectionate account of the great man’s life, viewing it from the perspective of how Dickens’ love for the world of the theatre influenced his life and work. Interspersed generously with Dickens’ own words, taken from his correspondence with friends, we get a real feel for his massive personality, his sense of fun, his unstoppable energy and, yes, his occasional pomposity too.
Callow doesn’t shirk from telling us about the less flattering aspects of Dickens’ life – his appalling treatment of his wife, for instance, and the occasional bullying of his poor publishers. But he also reminds us of the social campaigning and the generosity to family, friends and colleagues. The account is a linear one, so we find out what Dickens was involved in at the time of writing each of his novels and get a feel for the inspiration for each one.
Callow concentrates in considerable depth on Dickens the showman – the many theatrical performances he wrote for, played in and directed in his early life; and then the tremendous and punishing public readings of his own works which came to dominate so much of his later years. Here was an author who gave generously to his adoring public and who thrived on the adulation he was shown in return.
I’ve been in love with Dickens the writer for most of my life and now having read this fabulous biography I have fallen in love with Dickens the man! If I tell you that I cried when Dickens died (not an altogether unexpected plot development) then it will give you some idea of how much of the humanity of the man Callow has managed to reveal. I have been left wanting to re-read so many of the novels and stories, not to mention the letters – thank goodness for my copy of The Complete Works.
An exuberant and boisterous biography – a fitting tribute to this exuberant and remarkable man. Highly, highly recommended.
Callow has written a superbly readable and affectionate account of the great man’s life, viewing it from the perspective of how Dickens’ love for the world of the theatre influenced his life and work. Interspersed generously with Dickens’ own words, taken from his correspondence with friends, we get a real feel for his massive personality, his sense of fun, his unstoppable energy and, yes, his occasional pomposity too.
Callow doesn’t shirk from telling us about the less flattering aspects of Dickens’ life – his appalling treatment of his wife, for instance, and the occasional bullying of his poor publishers. But he also reminds us of the social campaigning and the generosity to family, friends and colleagues. The account is a linear one, so we find out what Dickens was involved in at the time of writing each of his novels and get a feel for the inspiration for each one.
Callow concentrates in considerable depth on Dickens the showman – the many theatrical performances he wrote for, played in and directed in his early life; and then the tremendous and punishing public readings of his own works which came to dominate so much of his later years. Here was an author who gave generously to his adoring public and who thrived on the adulation he was shown in return.
I’ve been in love with Dickens the writer for most of my life and now having read this fabulous biography I have fallen in love with Dickens the man! If I tell you that I cried when Dickens died (not an altogether unexpected plot development) then it will give you some idea of how much of the humanity of the man Callow has managed to reveal. I have been left wanting to re-read so many of the novels and stories, not to mention the letters – thank goodness for my copy of The Complete Works.
An exuberant and boisterous biography – a fitting tribute to this exuberant and remarkable man. Highly, highly recommended.
July 9, 2015
Tough to find a novel approach, that doesn't come off as as contrived/padding/reaching, in a biography of a public figure over a century later, but Callow pulls it off. Yes, there's mention of the novels as points of reference, as they really can't be avoided; however, it turns out Dickens was a real showman in his day - acting in plays co-written with Wilkie Collins, a master of magic tricks at parties, a rousing speaker, and much more. It's obvious Callow's done a great deal of research to bring alive scenes from the great writer's life - true "You Are There" moments, especially with the audio edition, where the author goes full throttle in his admiration and enthusiasm.
Near the end comes a line that particularly struck me: "Literature was his wife, but the theatre was his mistress."
Definitely recommended!
Near the end comes a line that particularly struck me: "Literature was his wife, but the theatre was his mistress."
Definitely recommended!
October 10, 2024
Audible credit 11 hours 4 min. Narrated by Simon Callow (A)
No one can truly appreciate a Dickens' novel until one understands how he wrote in serial format and how his books reflect his own life's story.
Simon Callow, researcher and actor, reveals both as he peels off the many facets of Dickens life through this biography that reveals Dickens' great love affair with the theater of his day.
This book made me want to buy a ticket to see a performance of The Frozen Deep produced, diected, and starring Charles Dickens. Wishful thinking!
It also made me cringe as it revealed some ugly aspects of Dickens's personal life. He was the sun of his own personal universe. He could warm you with his pleasure and burn you with his wrath.
No one can truly appreciate a Dickens' novel until one understands how he wrote in serial format and how his books reflect his own life's story.
Simon Callow, researcher and actor, reveals both as he peels off the many facets of Dickens life through this biography that reveals Dickens' great love affair with the theater of his day.
This book made me want to buy a ticket to see a performance of The Frozen Deep produced, diected, and starring Charles Dickens. Wishful thinking!
It also made me cringe as it revealed some ugly aspects of Dickens's personal life. He was the sun of his own personal universe. He could warm you with his pleasure and burn you with his wrath.
October 4, 2014
“Literature was his wife, but the theatre was his mistress.”
While I do love Dickens, I have never known much about him. For a long time, I have been reluctant to pick up a biography in order to learn more about the much admired author because most of the biographies written on Dickens are long, dense and filled with references and in depth discussions of his literary work. As I haven't read Dickens' entire bibliography I have avoided these very literary biographies.
Callow's biography takes a different approach to the admired author and almost mythical cultural figure that is Dickens. His subject isn't the sublime novels of Dickens, but Charles Dickens himself. Not the collected works, but the man behind them.
Callow's thesis is that Dickens was as much an actor as he was an author. He loved the stage, co-wrote plays with Wilkie Collins, did magic tricks at parties, did dramatic readings of his own stories for an audience, spoke enthusically and almost lived his life as a performance. According to Callow, it was only a coincidence which led Dickens to the newspaper world and the written word – otherwise he would have become an actor.
"Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World" explores Dickens' love for theatre and performing and paints a vivid portrait of the beloved novelist. It is both deeply entertaining and highly informative, without ever getting too scholarly or focused on a single novel or a single event.
While I do love Dickens, I have never known much about him. For a long time, I have been reluctant to pick up a biography in order to learn more about the much admired author because most of the biographies written on Dickens are long, dense and filled with references and in depth discussions of his literary work. As I haven't read Dickens' entire bibliography I have avoided these very literary biographies.
Callow's biography takes a different approach to the admired author and almost mythical cultural figure that is Dickens. His subject isn't the sublime novels of Dickens, but Charles Dickens himself. Not the collected works, but the man behind them.
Callow's thesis is that Dickens was as much an actor as he was an author. He loved the stage, co-wrote plays with Wilkie Collins, did magic tricks at parties, did dramatic readings of his own stories for an audience, spoke enthusically and almost lived his life as a performance. According to Callow, it was only a coincidence which led Dickens to the newspaper world and the written word – otherwise he would have become an actor.
"Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World" explores Dickens' love for theatre and performing and paints a vivid portrait of the beloved novelist. It is both deeply entertaining and highly informative, without ever getting too scholarly or focused on a single novel or a single event.
March 6, 2014
listened twice and have it stored in my 're-read treasure chest'
July 27, 2025
I have read other biographies of Charles Dickens but this one by Simon Callow, while obviously discussing his life and literary works, went into fascinating detail about his passion for the theatre. Who ever knew he was such a talented actor/director/playwright?!!! The book has inspired me to read or read again all of Dickens' novels, now with the added insight of understanding the motivations and emotions that drove him to write as he did. A fascinating book about a fascinating man.
October 1, 2012
Dickens biographies, like Dickens novels, tend to run to the high hundreds of pages. (Edgar Johnson's is 1200 pages in two volumes.) Which only adds to my appreciation of Simon Callow's slim and highly readable biography. Callow, who is probably best known in the United States as the actor who played the guy whose funeral is referred to in the title of Four Weddings and a Funeral, has also written biographies of Charles Laughton and Orson Welles (that one is already in two volumes, so he isn't always as concise as he is in the Dickens bio).
Callow's biography can be concise because he has a thesis: that Dickens was as much actor as novelist: "Literature was his wife, the theatre his mistress, and to the very end he was tempted to leave the one for the other." In fact, Dickens did leave his wife, but he never really acknowledged his mistress, the actress (of course!) Ellen Ternan. Where other Dickens biographers are steeped in literary criticism, Callow sees Dickens as a performer, working out an essentially dramatic approach to life.
This might explain why Dickens's reactions to events in his life -- e.g., the death of his wife's young sister, Mary; his childhood employment in the blacking factory -- seem often to have been so excessive, you might say "melodramatic." Dickens sometimes seems to have viewed his life as happening on a stage, where crucial events demand extraordinary reactions. Certainly, as Callow points out repeatedly, Dickens was never happier than when he was performing -- either as writer or as player.
In the end, Dickens's devotion to the theater culminated in the celebrated readings from his works, which may have -- Callow thinks they certainly did -- precipitated his early death: He was only 58 when he died.
This is an immensely readable book, focused more on the man than on the works. If you haven't read all of Dickens you needn't worry about getting lost in thickets of litcrit and plot parallels. I have only one tiny nit to pick: On Dickens's second visit to America, in 1867, Callow says he met with "President Jackson, who ... weeks after meeting Dickens, ... was impeached." That would have been Andrew Johnson, not Andrew Jackson.
Callow's biography can be concise because he has a thesis: that Dickens was as much actor as novelist: "Literature was his wife, the theatre his mistress, and to the very end he was tempted to leave the one for the other." In fact, Dickens did leave his wife, but he never really acknowledged his mistress, the actress (of course!) Ellen Ternan. Where other Dickens biographers are steeped in literary criticism, Callow sees Dickens as a performer, working out an essentially dramatic approach to life.
This might explain why Dickens's reactions to events in his life -- e.g., the death of his wife's young sister, Mary; his childhood employment in the blacking factory -- seem often to have been so excessive, you might say "melodramatic." Dickens sometimes seems to have viewed his life as happening on a stage, where crucial events demand extraordinary reactions. Certainly, as Callow points out repeatedly, Dickens was never happier than when he was performing -- either as writer or as player.
In the end, Dickens's devotion to the theater culminated in the celebrated readings from his works, which may have -- Callow thinks they certainly did -- precipitated his early death: He was only 58 when he died.
This is an immensely readable book, focused more on the man than on the works. If you haven't read all of Dickens you needn't worry about getting lost in thickets of litcrit and plot parallels. I have only one tiny nit to pick: On Dickens's second visit to America, in 1867, Callow says he met with "President Jackson, who ... weeks after meeting Dickens, ... was impeached." That would have been Andrew Johnson, not Andrew Jackson.
February 28, 2012
Delightfully Dickensian literary biography of Dickens himself--shorter than the Tomalin, with a different bent than Jane Smiley's Penguin Lives entry. Illuminating and amusing, and the British package is wicked adorable on my cubicle bookshelf.
March 15, 2025
I can say one thing for sure, I learned a lot about Charles Dickens that I didn't know beforehand. I had to skip through some portions of the book just because I was in unfamiliar territory as well as I was motivated just to get through the material and find something that I could recognize. I cannot believe the unrelenting schedule professional and personally that Dickens took throughout his entire life. He had superpowers it appeared before there were superpowers in the comic books. Amazing man yet tragic in some sense what he put his wife through and those around him. But the masses loved him and why not. The ultimate showman on full display up until his final dying days.
April 4, 2024
Eh, this book was fine. But the way Dickens treated his wife sometimes made me want to hurl the book at the wall.
April 28, 2024
Dickens never really had a pen name, he was too original for that. And for what we know about a name, we know very little. He had been a figure who almost everybody who speak English would at least have heard of, a furniture in the living room of the English language. Yet, most people know very little about his life, as most readers are unfamiliar with the authors of the books they cherish. And for someone who reads prolifically, I didn’t know Dickens all that well.
Up to this point, I’ve only had a handful of Dickens novels left for me to complete, and then what? My relationship with Charles Dickens as a reader is lukewarm at best. Personally, I think Dickens overrated — his characters are caricatures, his prolific writing means that many of his plots are reused and thus feel too familiar, his writing can be too verbose at times and none of his books really dive deep to the crevices of humanity as his Russian compatriots from the same era had done. Yet, I still read his books because I enjoy them.
Dickens had written some of the most beautiful extracts written in English, passages which would floor the shit out of you, some of his stories are genuinely heartbreaking and he was a beacon in an England too content to put profit over people. He was undeniably an important voice in an England becoming more constrictive to social changes, which makes his books, no matter how flawed, to speak volumes on real changes which occurred in the era.
After having read Callow’s biography of the bard, I have all the more respect for him. Dickens is a much flawed man, but he is a fountain of energy who was terrifyingly efficient with each waking minute. This will cost him much later on. He had touched upon poverty when he was young, though he had come from a middle-class beginning, he is a staunch Christian and preaches these values and at heart, he is a voracious performer.
These were the things that I got right about the man, and here are the things that surprised me after having read Callow’s biography of the inimitable man:
1. Dickens’ experience with poverty at a young age was a core event
Dickens’ father had a somewhat cushy job as a naval administrator, but throughout his life, he had always had an issue with poverty. He was eleven when he worked on a “blacking warehouse” for sixty hours a week, covering layers of pots, and he was embarrassed of his poverty to have missed out of a year off school.
It is somewhat of a humble beginning, and it’s not helped by the fact that his father was a spendthrift who freely borrows money like New Zealand wins rugby games. Much later on Dickens would wander all over London to take notes on the poverty which plighted the city. But it shaped Dickens to be who he was: curious of the poor, empathetic to their plight, more than willing to give the underdogs a voice.
2. He had a complex and somewhat distant relationship with his parents
The experiences of John Dickens mirrors the fates of the father in Little Dorritt, who was imprisoned in Marshalsea for not being able to pay off his debts and thus was placed into the debtors prison. Even after his enormous success as an author, John Dickens was still often in financial trouble. At some point, Dickens had to smuggle him out of London for things to cool down, lest he goes back to prison or worse.
His relations with his mother fared no better. After his father took him out of the blacking warehouse, his mother put him back there almost immediately, back to his own personal hell. Dickens had resented her for this and an abrupt wall had risen between his parents and him. Much later, before his mother’s death when he was already a man of fortune, the first thing that she had asked him for was money, once again putting money as the drive and plight for the Dickens.
3. His love for literature was rivalled by his love for the theatre
I knew little that Dickens dabbled in the theatre, but he did and did so profusely. He perhaps had loved the theatre more than writing, but the two art forms feed each other, the former moreso for the latter. We don’t hear much of Dickens’ success in the theatre, but that is because his paper lasts longer. And if he had been a movie star in this day and age, it is likely that he would be known more for his screen presence than his works, much like Tom Hanks is today. Dickens was a hair’s breadth away from choosing theatre as a career at one point.
Some of the roles he had taken on had shaped his demeanour for the remainder of his life, such as when he played the protagonist Richard Wardour in Wilkie Collins’ The Frozen Deep, for whom he had grown a beard and developed a sullen presence. Most importantly, he made money from the performances of his own prose. This is well-known, but not many would have known to what degree he would prepare for these readings, that he would memorise his own words back to front, and foster and accentuate the ebbs and flows of his prose. Though he had a gruelling tour schedule, he still wrote profusely as he always had.
It would have been a privilege to watch an animated Dickens elocuting his own words. I don’t think audiobooks in this day and age would compare.
4. He had a hot and cold relationship with America
If you had read Martin Chuzzlewit, you would know that Dickens was not really a big fan of his transatlantic cousins. Dickens had glorified America in his mind, wishing that the values of liberty prevalent in America would catch on in England where the average person would suffer from the mind-forged manacles of the Industrial Revolution. But when he spoke about intellectual property and how Americans should stop ripping off his stories, then he was met with staunch opposition, booed in halls and ridiculed in newspapers.
He reconciled his differences with America in his latter years, when he had become far more successful and they still hungered for him and his famous readings. He had the hero’s welcome and he was more gracious of the reception of his American friends. Yet, the awkward episode of America in Martin Chuzzlewit remains for us in English literature, for better or worse.
5. He was hung up by his early romances
Everybody fell in love, Dickens included, and perhaps on more than a few occasions. Dickens had always had an awkward relationship with women, though he had stayed married with his wife Catherine for 22 years and they had ten children together. I guess that’s a pretty good batting average, and intentionally or not, Dickens was true as his partial surname.
Yet, it was not Catherine Hogarth that he was infatuated with, but instead, Catherine’s deceased sister in Mary who had abruptly died in his arms after a night of deep conversation. The suddenness of the loss of this companion, who had been the essential third prong to his marriage damaged him, and to some extent shaped his writing. All the ideal versions of maidens in his novels are somewhat reincarnations of the young Mary Hogarth.
Before Dickens married Catherine, he was also infatuated with a Maria Beadnell when he was an upcoming reporter, though unsatisfied with his career. There was strong opposition from Maria’s father which caused the relationship to fall apart. Years later, when Dickens was rolling in cash, Maria got in touch with him and they agreed to meet covertly, away from their respective spouses. When Dickens saw her again, the chemistry was gone, and Maria became the exemplary Flora Finching in David Copperfield, a fallen flower beaten by the passing of time.
—
Callow’s biography is a good introduction to most beginners to Dickens, like me. There are perhaps more in-depth books on Dickens out there in the market, such as Dickens’ mate Forster, who was commissioned to write his biography. But what it reveals of Dickens's life to newcomers is fascinating. For those who wanted to analyse Dickens’ writing deeper, what influenced his style, his characters and that fine thread of humanity ever-present and ever-oppressive in books we label literature, there are some traces of that knowledge here. I have much more respect for Dickens the man after having read Callow’s depiction of the man, regardless of what I think about his imperfect work.
---
Adapted from the Medium Blog, which you can find here along with my other rants on other books.
Up to this point, I’ve only had a handful of Dickens novels left for me to complete, and then what? My relationship with Charles Dickens as a reader is lukewarm at best. Personally, I think Dickens overrated — his characters are caricatures, his prolific writing means that many of his plots are reused and thus feel too familiar, his writing can be too verbose at times and none of his books really dive deep to the crevices of humanity as his Russian compatriots from the same era had done. Yet, I still read his books because I enjoy them.
Dickens had written some of the most beautiful extracts written in English, passages which would floor the shit out of you, some of his stories are genuinely heartbreaking and he was a beacon in an England too content to put profit over people. He was undeniably an important voice in an England becoming more constrictive to social changes, which makes his books, no matter how flawed, to speak volumes on real changes which occurred in the era.
After having read Callow’s biography of the bard, I have all the more respect for him. Dickens is a much flawed man, but he is a fountain of energy who was terrifyingly efficient with each waking minute. This will cost him much later on. He had touched upon poverty when he was young, though he had come from a middle-class beginning, he is a staunch Christian and preaches these values and at heart, he is a voracious performer.
These were the things that I got right about the man, and here are the things that surprised me after having read Callow’s biography of the inimitable man:
1. Dickens’ experience with poverty at a young age was a core event
Dickens’ father had a somewhat cushy job as a naval administrator, but throughout his life, he had always had an issue with poverty. He was eleven when he worked on a “blacking warehouse” for sixty hours a week, covering layers of pots, and he was embarrassed of his poverty to have missed out of a year off school.
It is somewhat of a humble beginning, and it’s not helped by the fact that his father was a spendthrift who freely borrows money like New Zealand wins rugby games. Much later on Dickens would wander all over London to take notes on the poverty which plighted the city. But it shaped Dickens to be who he was: curious of the poor, empathetic to their plight, more than willing to give the underdogs a voice.
2. He had a complex and somewhat distant relationship with his parents
The experiences of John Dickens mirrors the fates of the father in Little Dorritt, who was imprisoned in Marshalsea for not being able to pay off his debts and thus was placed into the debtors prison. Even after his enormous success as an author, John Dickens was still often in financial trouble. At some point, Dickens had to smuggle him out of London for things to cool down, lest he goes back to prison or worse.
His relations with his mother fared no better. After his father took him out of the blacking warehouse, his mother put him back there almost immediately, back to his own personal hell. Dickens had resented her for this and an abrupt wall had risen between his parents and him. Much later, before his mother’s death when he was already a man of fortune, the first thing that she had asked him for was money, once again putting money as the drive and plight for the Dickens.
3. His love for literature was rivalled by his love for the theatre
I knew little that Dickens dabbled in the theatre, but he did and did so profusely. He perhaps had loved the theatre more than writing, but the two art forms feed each other, the former moreso for the latter. We don’t hear much of Dickens’ success in the theatre, but that is because his paper lasts longer. And if he had been a movie star in this day and age, it is likely that he would be known more for his screen presence than his works, much like Tom Hanks is today. Dickens was a hair’s breadth away from choosing theatre as a career at one point.
Some of the roles he had taken on had shaped his demeanour for the remainder of his life, such as when he played the protagonist Richard Wardour in Wilkie Collins’ The Frozen Deep, for whom he had grown a beard and developed a sullen presence. Most importantly, he made money from the performances of his own prose. This is well-known, but not many would have known to what degree he would prepare for these readings, that he would memorise his own words back to front, and foster and accentuate the ebbs and flows of his prose. Though he had a gruelling tour schedule, he still wrote profusely as he always had.
It would have been a privilege to watch an animated Dickens elocuting his own words. I don’t think audiobooks in this day and age would compare.
4. He had a hot and cold relationship with America
If you had read Martin Chuzzlewit, you would know that Dickens was not really a big fan of his transatlantic cousins. Dickens had glorified America in his mind, wishing that the values of liberty prevalent in America would catch on in England where the average person would suffer from the mind-forged manacles of the Industrial Revolution. But when he spoke about intellectual property and how Americans should stop ripping off his stories, then he was met with staunch opposition, booed in halls and ridiculed in newspapers.
He reconciled his differences with America in his latter years, when he had become far more successful and they still hungered for him and his famous readings. He had the hero’s welcome and he was more gracious of the reception of his American friends. Yet, the awkward episode of America in Martin Chuzzlewit remains for us in English literature, for better or worse.
5. He was hung up by his early romances
Everybody fell in love, Dickens included, and perhaps on more than a few occasions. Dickens had always had an awkward relationship with women, though he had stayed married with his wife Catherine for 22 years and they had ten children together. I guess that’s a pretty good batting average, and intentionally or not, Dickens was true as his partial surname.
Yet, it was not Catherine Hogarth that he was infatuated with, but instead, Catherine’s deceased sister in Mary who had abruptly died in his arms after a night of deep conversation. The suddenness of the loss of this companion, who had been the essential third prong to his marriage damaged him, and to some extent shaped his writing. All the ideal versions of maidens in his novels are somewhat reincarnations of the young Mary Hogarth.
Before Dickens married Catherine, he was also infatuated with a Maria Beadnell when he was an upcoming reporter, though unsatisfied with his career. There was strong opposition from Maria’s father which caused the relationship to fall apart. Years later, when Dickens was rolling in cash, Maria got in touch with him and they agreed to meet covertly, away from their respective spouses. When Dickens saw her again, the chemistry was gone, and Maria became the exemplary Flora Finching in David Copperfield, a fallen flower beaten by the passing of time.
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Callow’s biography is a good introduction to most beginners to Dickens, like me. There are perhaps more in-depth books on Dickens out there in the market, such as Dickens’ mate Forster, who was commissioned to write his biography. But what it reveals of Dickens's life to newcomers is fascinating. For those who wanted to analyse Dickens’ writing deeper, what influenced his style, his characters and that fine thread of humanity ever-present and ever-oppressive in books we label literature, there are some traces of that knowledge here. I have much more respect for Dickens the man after having read Callow’s depiction of the man, regardless of what I think about his imperfect work.
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Adapted from the Medium Blog, which you can find here along with my other rants on other books.
June 8, 2012
Absolutely excellent! Brings Dickens to life in all his complexity. I read the Tomalin bio first and enjoyed that very much. This one focuses intently on Dickens himself, especially his readings and theatrical performances which seemed to inspire his writing. Dickens immersed himself totally in whatever he was doing--writing, performing, playing with his children, staging his Christmas celebrations, drumming up support for one of his causes. His life WAS a drama and he seemed to see it that way. One can only speculate that his view of women was rooted in his parents' choice to enthusiastically support his musical sister and basically ignore his own intelligence and ambitions. Women seem to be almost cardboard representations of what he thinks a woman should be. While his treatment of his wife after she produced ten children was shameful, he always made sure he supported her. Dickens declined to follow the financially irresponsible example of his father and other family members. He lived BIG--played hard, worked hard, and, incredibly, could walk 10-30 miles at the drop of a hat. Callow left me with a sense of deprivation and irreversible loss because I will never see Dickens doing a reading. What magic it must have been in its time and place. At least there is some hope of seeing Callow portray Dickens, even if I have to take an eleven-hour plane trip to do so.
September 10, 2012
An interesting take on Charles Dickens' life and work. Callow not only agrees with other biographers that theater influenced the style of Dickens' writing, but also that Dickens' entire life was a performance. Still, the most interesting aspect is Callow's descriptions of Dickens working out his characters "in company" through his early informal performances and later public readings. He describes Dickens inhabiting each of his characters, performing their lines of dialogue in front of mirrors, etc. to flesh them out. Callow spends much of the latter part of the book tracing Dickens' tours and public readings, detailing the preparation of the characters and Dickens' evolving characterizations -- his adaptation and modification of the people, passages, and events of his earlier written works. This is a good read for devoted Dickens' fans.
November 30, 2012
I knew Simon Callow was a fine film actor, having seen him in “A Room with a View,” “Four Weddings and a Funeral” and “Shakespeare in Love.” Then, when I stumbled upon his recently published (August 2012) “Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World,” I found out he is a fine writer as well.
Well-researched and lively with revealing Dickensian anecdotes, the book focuses on Dickens’ love of the theatre and performing, and in the process exposes much about what made him tick and succeed as an author.
Like most successful folks, Dickens was a driven man with superhuman energy, according to Callow, and all-too-human failings. Reading this biography gives me new insight into Dickens’ fictional world and appreciation for the author, perhaps the first and greatest of literary self-promoters.
Well-researched and lively with revealing Dickensian anecdotes, the book focuses on Dickens’ love of the theatre and performing, and in the process exposes much about what made him tick and succeed as an author.
Like most successful folks, Dickens was a driven man with superhuman energy, according to Callow, and all-too-human failings. Reading this biography gives me new insight into Dickens’ fictional world and appreciation for the author, perhaps the first and greatest of literary self-promoters.
November 14, 2014
I have always been a great Dickens fan. I read A Christmas Carol
every Christmas and have for about 30 years. It was interesting to learn about his love of the stage and acting, while also re-learning about his life. Simon Callow does a great job relating both his remarkable love of the stage with his genius in his work as an author. While visiting England, I was fortunate enough to watch Mr. Callow perform The Mystery of Charles Dickens. He was truly amazing and brought not only Dickens to life, but also Dickens' characters to life, as Dickens did, while performing his readings.
every Christmas and have for about 30 years. It was interesting to learn about his love of the stage and acting, while also re-learning about his life. Simon Callow does a great job relating both his remarkable love of the stage with his genius in his work as an author. While visiting England, I was fortunate enough to watch Mr. Callow perform The Mystery of Charles Dickens. He was truly amazing and brought not only Dickens to life, but also Dickens' characters to life, as Dickens did, while performing his readings.
August 10, 2012
I decided to read this because I recently saw Simon Callow's stage monologue about Dickens and because I want to revisit Dicken's work during 2012.
Biography doesn't normally hold my attention for very long but this is hugely entertaining and emminently readable. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about this complex individual - not just one for scholars!
Biography doesn't normally hold my attention for very long but this is hugely entertaining and emminently readable. I'd recommend it to anyone wanting to know more about this complex individual - not just one for scholars!
January 7, 2020
Perhaps no one alive today has done more to shine a light on Charles Dickens, the man and his works, than Simon Callow (Charles Dickens 7 February 1812 – 9 June 1870). Callow has achieved a most delightful and compelling biography.
Callow himself performs one-man shows of Dickens life, along with adaptations of selected novel scenes for the stage. This is appropriate because Dickens often thrilled audiences by acting out scenes from his novels when his public readings burst into dramatic performances. Callow carries on the tradition, becoming much more than a scholarly biographer, but a dramatic virtuoso who breathes new life into the 19th-century author and his creative genius.
Dickens wrote from life. The statement has become a cliché, but no one can say it more truly than Dickens. Callow does a marvelous job mapping the biographical facts with characters and scenes in the novels. Even Dickens’ famous detailed descriptions of quaint shops and other charming nooks of 19th-century London—they derived from intentional explorations of hundreds and hundreds of those shops with the express purpose of describing them later.
One of Dickens’ favorite pastimes was to walk London streets for miles and miles, hours on end, every day, sometimes with a friend, sometimes alone. He also haunted theaters and tried his hand at acting early in life. He was conversant with stage life and made use of that knowledge in his stories as well. Also notably, Dickens’ depictions of child labor came from his own consignment to forced child labor in a blacking factory.
Many of Dickens’ contemporaries recognized themselves and each other in the novels. Several of the novels’ lawyers, proctors, courts, and even specific court cases were lifted straight from the real thing. An anguished protest from one such person (Jane Seymour Hill) characterized in early chapters of David Copperfield (Miss Mowcher), moved Dickens to significantly improve her characterization in later chapters (197). He could modify characters and plot direction in-progress, because the novels first appeared as magazine installments over the course of a year or more.
Connecting the real-life elements with the stories makes Callow’s biography all the more compelling. The astounding breadth and variety of characters in Charles Dickens’ novels speaks to both the brilliant writing of the author and of the fascinating colorful culture of Victorian London.
Simon Callow provides a beautiful and thorough discovery of Dickens the exceptional human being, through his vibrant and compassionate telling of the life of the author. Callow also provides fascinating insights into Dickens’ superhuman energy, imagination and intellect. Callow’s biography gives a deep look into Dickens’ creative life, the interplay between creative output and personal circumstances, and the profound psychological battles Dickens fought throughout his life.
It’s hard to say which part of Charles Dickens’ genius was the greater: storytelling, artistic writing, descriptive detail, complex plot organization, sheer high-level imagination, mixing fantastical with real to make them indistinguishable. There is no end to the ways Dickens is remarkable. Callow highlights these qualities vividly, while keeping the main focus on the man himself, his motivations, his conscience, his physical and mental struggles, and his complicated personality. Callow brings us inside, where we really get to know Dickens on a personal level.
Simon Callow achieves his own remarkable work of genius in this biography of Charles Dickens. The work shows moving affection as well as deep understanding of its subject. Our lives are fuller because of Dickens’ novels. And we are fuller because of Simon Callow’s work of art in this biography.
Callow himself performs one-man shows of Dickens life, along with adaptations of selected novel scenes for the stage. This is appropriate because Dickens often thrilled audiences by acting out scenes from his novels when his public readings burst into dramatic performances. Callow carries on the tradition, becoming much more than a scholarly biographer, but a dramatic virtuoso who breathes new life into the 19th-century author and his creative genius.
Dickens wrote from life. The statement has become a cliché, but no one can say it more truly than Dickens. Callow does a marvelous job mapping the biographical facts with characters and scenes in the novels. Even Dickens’ famous detailed descriptions of quaint shops and other charming nooks of 19th-century London—they derived from intentional explorations of hundreds and hundreds of those shops with the express purpose of describing them later.
One of Dickens’ favorite pastimes was to walk London streets for miles and miles, hours on end, every day, sometimes with a friend, sometimes alone. He also haunted theaters and tried his hand at acting early in life. He was conversant with stage life and made use of that knowledge in his stories as well. Also notably, Dickens’ depictions of child labor came from his own consignment to forced child labor in a blacking factory.
Many of Dickens’ contemporaries recognized themselves and each other in the novels. Several of the novels’ lawyers, proctors, courts, and even specific court cases were lifted straight from the real thing. An anguished protest from one such person (Jane Seymour Hill) characterized in early chapters of David Copperfield (Miss Mowcher), moved Dickens to significantly improve her characterization in later chapters (197). He could modify characters and plot direction in-progress, because the novels first appeared as magazine installments over the course of a year or more.
Connecting the real-life elements with the stories makes Callow’s biography all the more compelling. The astounding breadth and variety of characters in Charles Dickens’ novels speaks to both the brilliant writing of the author and of the fascinating colorful culture of Victorian London.
Simon Callow provides a beautiful and thorough discovery of Dickens the exceptional human being, through his vibrant and compassionate telling of the life of the author. Callow also provides fascinating insights into Dickens’ superhuman energy, imagination and intellect. Callow’s biography gives a deep look into Dickens’ creative life, the interplay between creative output and personal circumstances, and the profound psychological battles Dickens fought throughout his life.
It’s hard to say which part of Charles Dickens’ genius was the greater: storytelling, artistic writing, descriptive detail, complex plot organization, sheer high-level imagination, mixing fantastical with real to make them indistinguishable. There is no end to the ways Dickens is remarkable. Callow highlights these qualities vividly, while keeping the main focus on the man himself, his motivations, his conscience, his physical and mental struggles, and his complicated personality. Callow brings us inside, where we really get to know Dickens on a personal level.
Simon Callow achieves his own remarkable work of genius in this biography of Charles Dickens. The work shows moving affection as well as deep understanding of its subject. Our lives are fuller because of Dickens’ novels. And we are fuller because of Simon Callow’s work of art in this biography.
January 9, 2022
Simon Callow has performed Charles Dickens’ public readings as the great bearded impresario of Literature. I can recall watching him read ‘A Christmas Carol’ before a live audience like the great man of letters managed during his exhaustive reading tours across Britain, and once across The United States. This Christmas, Callow delivered another superb reading of the redemption of Ebeneezer Scrooge, echoing how Dickens’ performed his texts publicly. Such a track record makes Simon Callow the perfect person to write about Dickens’ life from the angle of the theatrical.
Callow reflects on how consistently Dickens was drawn to the theatre, performing in productions such as ‘The Frozen Deep’, where a lavish stage set was built in a temporary extension to the writer’s London home of Tavistock House. Such projects were a welcome relief for Dickens from writing novels and editing magazines, such as ‘Household Words’ and ‘All The Year Round’. This theatrical side to Dickens was then fused perfectly with his novels by performing public readings from his texts in a range of large halls; this was the Victorian equivalent of an arena tour. Like Las Vegas killed Elvis, the reading tours over the course of 16 years demolished Dickens, explaining why he died at 58 on June 9th, 1870.
Callow provides a brisk text that shows the bright side of Dickens as well as the cruel, ruthless persona experienced by his wife, children and publishers.
This is a pleasant, informative and relaxing read.
Callow reflects on how consistently Dickens was drawn to the theatre, performing in productions such as ‘The Frozen Deep’, where a lavish stage set was built in a temporary extension to the writer’s London home of Tavistock House. Such projects were a welcome relief for Dickens from writing novels and editing magazines, such as ‘Household Words’ and ‘All The Year Round’. This theatrical side to Dickens was then fused perfectly with his novels by performing public readings from his texts in a range of large halls; this was the Victorian equivalent of an arena tour. Like Las Vegas killed Elvis, the reading tours over the course of 16 years demolished Dickens, explaining why he died at 58 on June 9th, 1870.
Callow provides a brisk text that shows the bright side of Dickens as well as the cruel, ruthless persona experienced by his wife, children and publishers.
This is a pleasant, informative and relaxing read.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
May 11, 2017
Simply superb. Simon Callow reads his own work and I highly recommend the audiobook for those who are so inclined.
This is a brief but comprehensive biography of Dickens told by an affectionate fan who is nonetheless clear eyed about Dickens' positive and negative qualities. Callow is an actor by trade and his appreciation for Dickens is in large part for someone who was always "performing" and thrived most when he had a relationship with his audience.
I myself didn't realize what a talented actor Dickens was or how many theatrical performances he was a part of, especially since in Victorian times amateur plays were a common pastime. When you've got friends the likes of Thackery and Wilkie Collins, you know the screenplay will be terrific, there will be lots of fun getting the show together, and you'll pull in quite a crowd. No wonder Dickens loved driving those performances!
As I said, this is a comprehensive biography and I highly recommend it. I was left with a greater appreciation for Dickens' genius and a real sympathy for those who lived with that genius running their lives. It must have been glorious but tiring to be one of Dickens's friends or family!
This is a brief but comprehensive biography of Dickens told by an affectionate fan who is nonetheless clear eyed about Dickens' positive and negative qualities. Callow is an actor by trade and his appreciation for Dickens is in large part for someone who was always "performing" and thrived most when he had a relationship with his audience.
I myself didn't realize what a talented actor Dickens was or how many theatrical performances he was a part of, especially since in Victorian times amateur plays were a common pastime. When you've got friends the likes of Thackery and Wilkie Collins, you know the screenplay will be terrific, there will be lots of fun getting the show together, and you'll pull in quite a crowd. No wonder Dickens loved driving those performances!
As I said, this is a comprehensive biography and I highly recommend it. I was left with a greater appreciation for Dickens' genius and a real sympathy for those who lived with that genius running their lives. It must have been glorious but tiring to be one of Dickens's friends or family!
August 28, 2018
Oh man, Simon Callow was the perfect person to write this sort of book. Filled with fascinating anecdotes, meaningful connections between Dickens' novels and his lifelong love for the theater, and, of course, the usual suspects in any Dickens biography (Warren's Blacking Factory, Mary Hogarth, the constant feud with publishers, the frenzied penning of A Christmas Carol, his magazine editorships, trips abroad, the reading tours, Ellen Ternan, etc.).
The most intriguing element of this book is that unlike the typical progression of a Dickens biography, unfolding the story of his life with pitstops to discuss each of his major novels, Callow turns left where others turned right; his jaunts into Dickens' love for the stage, his (almost) career as an actor, his famous staging of The Frozen Deep, his surprising capacity to assume hundreds of voices and faces, and his intensely successful public readings (that sold out every single time) are simply fascinating. I found myself constantly imagining the Inimitable himself, bounding across the stage of his life, restless to the end.
There will never be another Charles Dickens, and this book reminds us why.
The most intriguing element of this book is that unlike the typical progression of a Dickens biography, unfolding the story of his life with pitstops to discuss each of his major novels, Callow turns left where others turned right; his jaunts into Dickens' love for the stage, his (almost) career as an actor, his famous staging of The Frozen Deep, his surprising capacity to assume hundreds of voices and faces, and his intensely successful public readings (that sold out every single time) are simply fascinating. I found myself constantly imagining the Inimitable himself, bounding across the stage of his life, restless to the end.
There will never be another Charles Dickens, and this book reminds us why.
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