Girl in a Blue Dress

by Gaynor Arnold

Beloved writer Alfred Gibson's funeral is taking place at Westminster Abbey, and Dorothea, his wife of twenty years has not been invited. Gibson's will favours his many children and secret mistress over Dorothea - who was sent away from the family home when their youngest was still an infant. Dorothea has not left her apartment in years, but when she receives a surprise invitation to a private audience with Queen Victoria, she is shocked to find she has much in common with Her Highness. With renewed confidence Dorothea is spurred to examine her past and confront not only her family but the pretty young actress Miss Ricketts.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Book Club, British Literature, Victorian, 19th Century

434 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 2008

Reviews

[Tea Jovanović · Rating 3 out of 5]

Iako obožavam Čarlsa Dikensa ova knjiga me je ostavila potpuno ravnodušnom... I ne vidim razlog što je uopšte ušla u širi izbor za Bukera...

[Doreen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was surprised by how complex this book is. Much like Paula McLain's The Paris Wife, this novel takes the breakdown of a famous writer's marriage and transcends the tawdrier qualities to present a moving, realistic portrayal of personalities and emotions abruptly whipsawn by circumstances. Gaynor Arnold doesn't pretend this is a completely factual account -- unlike Ms McLain, she didn't have a wealth of source material to work from -- but it's still a very realistic account of Victorian morality and thinking, providing us with at least a little insight into the life and times of some of the Victorian era's most famous denizens.

To begin with, we have the character of Arthur Gibson, around whom the story revolves. Gibson, modeled very closely on Charles Dickens, is an egotist and tyrant. A benevolent tyrant overall, but a man who must always be right, and who is ruthless in forcing his version of the truth, whereby he is the hero and savior, on everyone around him. He demands the unquestioning love and allegiance of his circle and, being the strong-willed sort, usually gets it. Any transgressors are cut out of his life entirely. Most of the Victorian women in this book, not having been raised to be strong-willed, fall easily under his spell; few escape. Even his discarded and deeply wronged wife, Dorothea, continues to be loving and forgiving towards him throughout the narrative, a fact that I found maddening but not unbelievable. It's hard to blame her, after all: she'd been raised to be ornamental and passive, and is quite happy to spend her days quietly, hardly ever venturing out of her rooms. Ironically, her disinclination to activity is one of the reasons Gibson demands she leave, as she cannot be the helpmeet she once was (and that he vilely claims she never was. Dick.) It's difficult to be vivacious and collected when birthing 8 children in rapid succession (heaven knows, I have days where it feels as if all I can do apart from rearing my only child is nap.) Gibson has a difficult time understanding why Dorothea cannot cater to his every whim once their children start being born, and it's pretty much all downhill from there. Ms Arnold paints a portrait of a man so wrapped up in shoring up his sense of self that he refuses to believe he could possibly do wrong: that she does this even-handedly, displaying his talent and generosity as well as his flaws, is a testament to the wisdom she brings to her career as a novelist. I also appreciated the candor she brought to Dorothea, who is patient and kind but also foolish and weak. Dorothea is clearly a victim, but she never stoops, once she has been shunted aside, to act like it.

One of the things I enjoyed most about this novel -- even though it was also the bit that felt most fantastical to me -- was the deep sense of sisterhood that ran throughout once Gibson was taken out of the equation. It's a pity that a man, even one as tireless in his good works otherwise as Gibson, could so easily wreck all those bonds as he had in the name of selfishness, but it was nice to see the women picking up the pieces afterwards and mending their personal relationships. I also quite agreed with Eddie when he huffed that he hadn't understood why Gibson couldn't just take a mistress discreetly, like other gentlemen. Again, it's the monstrous ego that needs to assure himself of his own inherent goodness that won't allow Gibson to compromise himself morally, instead forcing any possible public opprobrium, and the resulting indignities and pain, on those attached to him. I don't know if a man like Gibson could survive, ego intact, in this day and age. I sincerely hope not, but humanity always has the capacity to surprise.

[Sterlingcindysu · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 rounded down. A great debut novel!

So, okay, this is a story based on Dicken's marriage but all the characters are fiction. (So if you're wondering if there's countless references to Dicken's work, the answer is no. Arnold makes up new titles and mentions some references to basic items, such as "bah humbug!" or "the orphan boy".) I did catch one "Charley" instead of "Alfred" being used in referring to the Dickens character.

As they say, fact is stranger than fiction and when I googled Dicken's relationship to his sisters-in-law, it was very odd. I'd read The Last Dickens not too long ago that covers Dicken's last trip to America and death, so this was a nice companion piece.

So you have "The One and Only" (who used it to refer to himself) married to a woman who bears 8 children, has post partum depression, is exhausted and also probably has chronitic fatigue syndrome. Eyes will wander and that isn't anything new...what is new is Dicken's treatment of his wife.

I must admit at parts this book did drag a bit--for example, after Dicken's funeral, Dodo visits the Queen. Arnold not only writes of that, but also when Dodo tells two other people of the visit and repeats everything over. And, let's face it, reading over and over again about how someone is exhausted doesn't make for rapt reading.



Who Dickens wanted to be buried beside, not at the Poet's Corner in Westminister Abbey.

[Nancy Oakes · Rating 4 out of 5]

As the story (set squarely in the Victorian era) opens, a woman is sitting at home, unable to go to her husband's funeral. Thousands of other people went, but she is at home in a small apartment. She can only hear the details from her daughter. The woman in question is Dorothea, nicknamed Dodo; the dead man is Alfred Gibson, known also as the One and Only, a famous British writer whose works were read even by the queen. Dorothea did not go to the funeral because no one wanted her there; it turns out after Dodo had borne several children, and suffered from being overtired, nervous, etc., and was basically no longer her younger self, her husband had publicly turned her out of her home, and had separated her from her children. Oh yes, I forgot...it seems that he had also taken on a mistress.

Now, if all of this sounds familiar, it's because Girl in a Blue Dress is based on the life of Catherine Dickens, the wife of Charles Dickens. Here, Dorothea Gibson is the narrator, and through weaving the past into her present, we manage to get a feel for a much younger Alfred Gibson, a much younger Dodo, and the growing heaviness that weighed not only upon her as the wife of Alfred, and mother of several children, but as a woman constantly made insecure by the adoration of her husband by his Public. Alfred is a rather complex individual, having to control everything and everyone, having to put on both public and private faces, and the whole book is Dorothea's look back at their life together in an effort to try to understand her situation. But although Alfred is painted sometimes rather negatively, there are indeed passages where the author shows that Dodo isn't exactly the perfect example of the Victorian wife. After all, the danger of reading a novel from the narrator's point of view is that you're not really going to get both sides, but the author does manage to overcome this problem.

The title "Girl in a Blue Dress," refers to an episode in Dodo's life when she was actively seeking the attention of Alfred as a suitor, but as you continue to read, there's another meaning to it altogether. And at that point, everything you need to know about Alfred and Dodo sort of clicks into place.

It is a fine book, one I am most happy to have read. The characters are convincing with the exception of Dorothea at the end of the novel. I thought this was problematic because it comes on quite suddenly, and I was scratching my head going "huh?" at that point.

If you are into the Victorian period, then you're really going to love this one. Arnold's writing is beyond good and she manages to capture the feel of a Victorian writer so at times you're so caught up in the story that you don't realize you're reading a modern author. Highly recommended.

[pinkgal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Liked reading it, but not sure whether I could recommend it. Yes, there seemed to be a conclusion and yes, Catherine's voice is strong in here. But really. WHAT WAS THE POINT? We never got a satisfying conclusion; the confrontation with her sister and with the 'mistress' gave me no sense of closure. I was so disappointed in the end because nothing seems to change. But I guess that could be the point; nothing is supposed to change. This is a portrayal of Dicken's life and Catherine's previously unheard voice is the point; in that way, this was a very successful story because you hear someone who you've never heard speak before.

[Ashley Marilynne Wong · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a fairly good Dickensian pastiche, however I didn’t quite warm to the protagonists and I thought the narrative could have been more organised.

[Kristin · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was our book club pick for January. I was really excited to read this book. It is based on the marriage of Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine. Before beginning this book I had zero back ground knowledge of their marriage...or lives for that matter. Believe me the cover alone had me intrigued.

Here is my advice: Do Not Read this book if/when you are feeling slightly depressed, fat, or if you are having marital difficulties. It could put you over the edge. It nearly put me over the edge...and I was not having marital difficulties; I have been feeling rather glum due to the cold never-ending-gray winter; and I was feeling fat due to the fact that I hadn't gone to the gym for a week. Not a good combination for reading this book.

It is another gentle read. It is a quiet novel, not too much action. Most of the time it is Dorothea reflecting on her marriage, the past, and how she has come to be in the position she is in, which is, cast-off from her home and family.

Here are the positives: It is elegantly written. It is interesting. Charles Dickens as Alfred Gibson is an interesting albeit complicated man. It is a compelling although not terribly exciting read.

The negatives: Alfred Gibson/Charles Dickens is an S.O.B. and I wanted to kick the said S.O.B.in the teeth the entire novel. Also, Dorothea is an irritating enabler who spent her whole life making excuses for him DESPITE the fact that he treated her like crap, kicked her out, took up with a mistress, and kept her from her children. Yes, Yes, I realize it was in Victorian times and women didn't have many options except to do as they were told by their husbands (it pains me to even write that) but I think I would've been putting up more of a fight especially where the children were concerned and not thinking so highly of old Alfred which she continues to do the entire novel and defends him adamantly. Another negative, the ending.

****Spoiler****

When old Alfred appears from the dead...did he have to answer to Dorothea for his abominable behavior? NO!! He again tells her what to do...and not very nicely...and she does it. Give me a break!!

You do not leave this book thinking very highly of Charles Dickens, "the Great Original", "the One and Only" and that is disappointing. Having said that it was interesting historical fiction.

My Rating: Good...leaning toward OK.

[Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed every page of this first novel by Gaynor Arnold, this was long-listed for the Man Booker Prize and it should have won!

Dorothea, widow of Alfred Gibson narrates the story. Alfred was the most famous novelist of Victorian times and much loved by the British public. The story opens on the day of his funeral - to which Dorothea was not invited. They have lived apart for many years and Dorothea has been banished to a small London house. Whilst the rest of the country mourns Alfred's passing, she reflects on her life with him.

Alfred is based on Charles Dickens and as far as I know, the author has stuck quite closely to his actual life and family story. He was a lively, high spirited young man who spent his life writing for his adoring public. Not only did he produce many books, but he and Dorothea had a very large family.

Gaynor Arnold writes in her acknowldegments that she has fictionalised many scenes, added some characters and removed some of them. Dorothea thinks back to when Alfred was a young man in love, a doting father and a friend to many.

After Alfred's death Dorothea encounters many problems with her family, with money and her layabout no-good son-in-law, she also goes off to meet with another new widow - Queen Victoria. Eventually Dorothea plucks up the courage to meet with her estranged sister, the woman who stayed with Alfred until his death, and also the young actress who was Alfred's mistress - or was she?

This is an exceptionally well written novel, I knew nothing about Charles Dickens private life and it probably works best that way. It is full of detail about Victorian life, yet never stuffy or old-fashioned. A really easy read - I loved it.

[Karen Hogan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this fictionalized account of the marriage of Charles and Catherine Dickens. The author does an excellent job imagining the difference between the moralistic public writer, and the not so nice family man and husband. He was egotistical, self-centered, and willing to destroy his wife in order to satisfy his desire for a younger woman. Worth reading.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

Despite its somewhat feminist sensibilities, this is a thoroughly old-fashioned book -- which is appropriate since it's inspired by Dickens. Throughout, the dialogue sounds utterly written, not spoken. Once I got over this artifice and accepted the book on its own terms (within in first 20 pages or so) I was hooked. I liked this one a lot and I'm sorry it's over.

[Bettie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good book, but if you like Charles Dickens, do not read it because you will not like him as a person when you finish this book!

[Girl with her Head in a Book · Rating 4 out of 5]

Even as a child, Charles Dickens' private life bothered me. I had a Puffin Classics edition of one of his books which included a one paragraph biography at the front which described how he separated from his wife 'to pursue his friendship' with an actress. Even aged seven, I knew what that meant and for someone who was undergoing a Presbyterian up-bringing at the time, I couldn't believe that he had been allowed to behave so appallingly and still be famous. Over the years I discovered that I quite liked a lot of Dickens' stories and have made an effort to separate the public from the private but still, there is a part of me which is still the angry little seven year-old with the massive fringe who thinks that this dreadful behaviour. Arnold is speaking up for Catherine Dickens and indeed wronged women everywhere. Girl In A Blue Dress is written with warmth and understanding and forgiveness, Arnold's sympathy for her subjects is vivid and her novel grants Dickens' women dignity and respect, something with the great man himself never afforded them.

I read Arnold's After Such Kindness last year and similarly to that, she has written a lightly fictional account of events which remains instantly recognisable. Just as before, she captures the cadence of Dickens' words without ever quoting him directly. In Girl In A Blue Dress, Dorothea Gibson sits alone and abandoned, excluded from the funeral of her husband Alfred Gibson, the self-styled One and Only and most celebrated writer of the age. Of course, Dorothea had not seen her husband in ten years at the time of his death and in her new identity as widow, she begins to confront her past life as wife. The story of their relationship is told via flashback from their first meeting to the final horrific deterioration of their marriage. It is an unnerving story in many ways, not least because the most extreme episodes are drawn directly from life. Dickens really did have an infatuation with his wife's teenage sister Mary Hogarth and when she died prematurely, he really was incapacitated by his grief. Young Mary made several appearances in Dickens' fiction as an idealised young maiden, having died before she could do anything to disappoint him and here in Arnold's novel, she reappears as Alice Millar, who Alfred Gibson sobbed that he could not do without.

While people might make excuses for Dickens as a man from a bygone time, there is no getting away from the fact that by the standards of the Victorian era, Dickens behaved atrociously. He forced his wife out of the house, banned their children from seeing her and castigated her as an incompetent spouse and parent through the national press. As his fictional equivalent is borne away to Westminster Abbey, Dorothea begins to unclench from her decade of isolation and to peep out a world which she has allowed to forget her. The way that Arnold guided Dorothea to various one-to-one conversations with the major players in her downfall felt at times slightly inorganic but at the same time, I wished for the real Catherine the same sense of closure that Dorothea seemed to be gaining. What Dickens did to her was cruel beyond all comprehension and one senses Arnold's passion in trying to seek some kind of redress for her.

With Alfred Gibson dead, their children shuffle over one by one to reacquaint themselves with their mother. There is a mixture sheepishness and resentment for their abandonment but each of the children bears the same simmering resentment for their father who gave them everything but who demanded such unwavering obedience. Alfred's needs must always come first - when Dorothea confronts her sister Sissy who stayed on as housekeeper when Dorothea was thrown out just as Georgina Hogarth did in real life, Sissy castigates her that poor Alfred had not been being properly taken care of. There is no question that Dorothea might have needs of her own, only that Alfred was not being put first. Wilhelmina, Alfred's mistress says the same.

The question of Catherine Dickens' crimes has been a thorny one; she weighed Dickens down with the burden of their ten children. As Arnold points out, she would have had very little access to information about contraception - certainly less than Dickens himself could have gotten hold of. It does take two to tango. Apparently Catherine let herself go, became incredibly fat. Yet we see from photographs that she was not unduly so and anyway, once again ten children. Apparently she was an incompetent housekeeper, but yet again ten children, one of whom died causing Catherine to plunge into a deep depression. Behind all of these excuses lies the fact that Charles Dickens and his fictional counterpart fell in love with younger women and in the words of Matthew Crawley of Downton Abbey fame, men who seduce younger women always claim to have disagreeable wives.

What Arnold draws here most disturbingly though is how Alfred Gibson convinces himself and the world that Dorothea was the problem, that his own desires have nothing to do with the end of his marriage but rather his wife's inadequacies. The world is all too willing to be convinced - Shakespeare's wife was bequeathed his second-best bed, Effie Grey was publicly shamed by John Ruskin and so on. Even recently, when Brad Pitt and Jennifer Aniston broke up, the gossip magazines rounded on Aniston as a cold-hearted woman who had refused to have Pitt's children. When David Beckham had his affair, it was because Victoria Beckham was too ambitious to spend time looking after him. Catherine Dickens' story comes at the very, very beginning of the age of celebrity and Arnold's novel charts how her husband did not simply humiliate her in her own home but in front of the whole world. As Dorothea points out to Wilhelmina, she had just lost two children - why was Alfred expecting her to run around after him?

Dorothea meets with Queen Victoria, with each of her sons and daughters, with her sister, she talks with her current servants and her former servants and then she also speaks with her husband's mistress Wilhelmina Ricketts. Still, Dorothea's most impassioned speech comes when she is speaking with her late husband's friend O'Rourke, when she bursts into a tirade about the situation of Victorian women. It lacks a certain credibility that a woman who had put herself into voluntary house arrest might over the course of a few days muster enough anger to speak so, the words feel far more as if they are coming from Arnold but that feeling does not dim their power. While the kindly O'Rourke demurs that women have the power of 'yea or nay', Dorothea cries out that this is all the power they have, that for the rest of their lives they are 'dependent upon the goodwill of their husbands for their very survival.' It was no more fair that Dickens consigned Ellen Ternan to a life of secrecy and lies than it was that he threw Catherine out of the house. Arnold's novel does not cast blame on the girl who turned the husband's head but firmly points out that neither action was acceptable, that these two women should cast aside their own feelings, hopes, ambitions - everything - out of service to this man.

This could have been a harrowing read, plotting Dorothea's desperate descent from smitten young girl to the cast-off wife but it is not, because Arnold writes with too much warmth to let the chill of Gibson's actions truly linger. Dorothea still loves her husband, still longs for his approval and as it is her voice guiding us through, as well as the cold-blooded man of later years, we see the man who Dorothea and the nation fell in love with. Alfred was the young man who walked for miles to drop a letter for 'Dodo' in a wall where she might pick it up. He was the one who made love to his wife on their wedding night and laughed at how nice young ladies did not usually enjoy their deflowering as Dorothea had, so the two of them would simply have to do it again. When Alfred discovered their nanny was illiterate, he apologise heartily for not having realised sooner, knowing that Bessie had been the eldest of her family and was presumably too busy helping her mother to go to school - and then Alfred taught her himself. There was a reason why people were drawn to him. Dorothea's own last encounter with Alfred summons up one last time the man who loved her and it feels as though this is the version she will choose to remember, just as Catherine Dickens bequeathed her husband's love letters to the public 'that the world might know he loved [her] once.'

Girl in a Blue Dress is neither biography nor exactly fiction, it feels like an act of compassion more than anything. There are no flaming rows or recriminations, simple conciliation and connections - there can be doubt that Dickens sowed devastation across his family but through this novel, Arnold breathes kindness and with her parting paragraphs, she gives this ghostly Catherine a weapon of her own - Dorothea picks up a pen.

For my full review: http://www.girlwithherheadinabook.blo...

[Casey · Rating 2 out of 5]

I still am not quiet sure how I felt about this book. I didn't really care for any of the characters but I did get caught up enough in the story to keep on going. It is a fictional account of Charles Dickens marriage. The characters names have all been changed. It was just a! But odd...

[Angelique Simonsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good book but a little dull in places.

[Felice · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The Girl in the Blue Dress" is a fictionalized account of the life of Charles Dickens from the viewpoint of his wife Catherine. For years Catherine was viewed as sort of a 'Shakespeare's Wife'. A shadow of no real interest except for the number of children she gave birth to. A dull footnote in a brilliant man's career. In "Girl" Dickens is Alfred Gibson and Catherine is his wife Dorothea. In this Alfred is the It Boy of Victorian letters, magnetic, representing the values of home and hearth, popularly viewed as a social reformer and successful beyond belief. Dorothea is the quiet wife once loved and pursued now humiliated and left behind.

When "Girl" opens, Alfred is dead. The world is mourning his passing. He is being remembered as 'The Great One' and 'The One and Only'. He and Catherine have been separated for 10 years. Alfred had grown tired of his dutiful, ever pregnant wife. He cast her out, publicly painted her as mad, installed her in a barely decent apartment and kept all but one of their eight children from seeing her--just as Dickens did to Catherine. Dorothea humbled by the estrangement, did as she was told and moved on to a nun-like life. Spending her days reading and re-reading Alfred's novels and brooding over what had been and what it had become. An invitation from another widow, Queen Victoria pulls Dorothea back into the world and compels her to try and reclaim her life.

The events of Alfred and Dorothea's lives so faithfully follow those of Charles and Catherine that you might wonder why write a novel? Why not write a biography of the Dickens' marriage? A novel gives Catherine/Dorothea a voice that history can not. The subject matter is at the level of you-can't-make-up-this-stuff but the author's insights and handling of it all is made credible and consistent with the time period and her descriptions of Victorian life would have made Dickens jealous. The research is impeccable.

There never seems to be any middle ground with first novels. They fall into one of two categories: better luck next time or wham, a homer. First timer Gaynor Arnold has put this one out of the park and I'm thrilled. A new author to look forward to! Because after all it really is all about me

[Adriane Devries · Rating 3 out of 5]

Gaynor Arnold’s first published novel, a fictional memoir told from the point of view of Charles Dickens’ estranged wife, proves that there are still great, new authors with much to contribute to the world of letters. Combining Dickens-inspired language and convincing social mores and scenery, she furnishes the tabloid-worthy facts of the complex author’s life with characters who, like himself, are at times villains, comic relief, and occasionally unlikely heroes; and by featuring one of his favorite themes, that of redemption of the human spirit, her novel reads much like a beloved lost Dickens novel itself. The uniquely feminine perspective of the Victorian heroine reminds modern women how much we have to be grateful for, such as the right to vote and hot tap water, yet encourages us that where we see injustice, we must make change rather than accept what has always been. We no doubt still have blind spots of social justice that are uncomfortable to face, yet are possible through uncommon acts of love and courage.

[Tayla · Rating 2 out of 5]

This just eeked out the second star. It was just barely ok. The subtitle caught my eye at the library and, since I'm interested in Dickens, sounded appealing. I would have enjoyed a non-fiction account of his marriage more, though this mirrored it in many ways. The goofy titles the author made up for use in place of Dickens' actual novels were enough to make anyone blanch. The writing itself was uninspired and only the curiosity to find out what would become of the title character was enough to compel me to finish. 'Finish' may be a loose term because I largely skimmed the book, something I never do, but it was either that or give up on it altogether.
It earns a second star for a few interesting scenes, but overall - skip it.

[Nikki Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really thought this book was intriguing. A historical fiction piece revolving around Charles Dickens and his wife—told from her perspective about their courtship, marriage and its dissolution. Particularly noteworthy to me was the role of women, and how few choices they really had in life, compared to men.

[Kathryn Bashaar · Rating 2 out of 5]

This novel is inspired by the marriage of Charles and Catherine Dickens, renamed Alfred and Dorothea (Dodo) Gibson in the book.

Gibson has a BIIIIG personality: charming, energetic, creative, and very, very domineering. Dodo is only in her teens when they meet and has led a very sheltered upper-middle class life. Gibson is a working-class young man when they first meet, just starting to make a name for himself as an actor and writer. He sweeps Dodo off her feet and they marry against the objections of her parents. Soon after the marriage, Gibson's writing career soars.

Dodo adores Alfred, but has never been energetic enough to keep up with him. She bears him eight children over the next decade or two, and grows fatter and more weary with each one. Eventually, Alfred is rumored to have a mistress and he disposes of Dodo with shocking callousness.

I enjoyed the first two-thirds of this book, and I like the way the author chose to tell the story. She begins with Gibson's death, and the abandoned Dodo's reaction to it. Gibson's funeral and the events immediately after it form a sort of frame for Dodo to reminisce about her life with Gibson. The story of their earlier relationship is told via her reminiscing, and the back and forth from past to present is seamless and very well done.

The psychology of people who must deal with a charming narcissist was also very well-done.

But the final hundred or so pages of this book didn't work for me. Dodo's children and some old friends, most of whom had also abandoned her, suddenly reappear in her life. Dodo had been a near-recluse for the whole ten years between her separation from Alfred and his death. Suddenly, inspired by reunions with her children and a meeting with the Queen, she finds an amazing level of gumption. She even confronts the mistress, in a scene that felt very implausible to me. Dodo is very sympathetic, but she didn't feel like a consistent character to me.

Like my reviews? Check out my blog at http://www.kathrynbashaar.com/blog/
Author of The Saints Mistress https://camcatbooks.com/Books/T/The-S...

[Deborah Siddoway · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was an intriguing book, largely because the narrative is based on the marriage of Charles Dickens and his wife Catherine, except with all the characters renamed and taking on a new identity. Here we have the discarded Mrs Gibson, living in virtual isolation in an apartment in London while her husband was lauded as the One and Only, one of the most popular and influential men living in London at the time. The book is well written, and certainly keeps you engaged, and explores the way in which Mrs Gibson's love for her husband still guides and directs her action years after he publicly humiliated her. My one criticism is the appearance of the ghostly Mr Gibson, her Alfred, towards the end of the book. I really struggled with this as a plot device, and would have have liked to see our heroine actually choose a path that she had determined for herself, instead of one, which yet again, was bowing to the dictates of her husband. An interesting concept, but I think I almost would have preferred a more direct fictional biography, rather than one that changed names and the gender of the children. The marriage of the Charles and Catherine Dickens was intriguing, and for a man who borrowed so much from his observations of life all around him, I think it would have been far more fitting to write his story.

[Pam Schemrich · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 ⭐️

[Marcy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Girl in a Blue Dress has a cast of characters with different names, but in fact, this is a fictionalized story about Catherine Dickens, the wife of Charles Dickens, and the great writer. Catherine's father had been Dicken's benefactor. When he was invited for dinner, Catherine and Charles fell madly in love. Catherine's father was dead against this marriage. Charles Dickens was poor and unknown. Despite the parents' wishes, Charles and Catherine were married. Catherine was not educated and paled in front of the company invited to their home. Charles made fun of Catherine in front of company, but he continued to impregnate Catherine - eight children to be exact. With each pregnancy, Catherine lost energy and slept away the hours. When her sister came to stay and help, there was a strong "suggestion" that incest occurred and was insinuated by Catherine. Catherine was jealous and did not hide it, forcing Charles to distance himself from her. The sister died. Charles was bereft. When encouraged strongly to go away for months of "rest," Charles settled comfortably in his home with Catherine's second sister who ran the household without the mother present. When Catherine came home, her children were not there to greet her and Charles was clearly done with his wife. Catherine was asked to leave their house, which she did willingly. Although Charles Dickens was now well known, rich, and treated like a god by his readers in England and America, Catherine lived sparingly in several small rooms for ten years before Charles' death. After his death, much of the story is told by Catherine's recollections, and conversations with the children she had not seen in years. Charles Dickens clearly wanted to be the king of literature. He needed to be front and center, often belittling his family members while being entertaining. His story was the single story, blaming his marriage on Catherine to the public while he was seeing an actress the age of one of his daughters. The story was compelling, but often repetitious. Still I would highly recommend the Girl in the Blue Dress.

[Darlene · Rating 4 out of 5]

Girl in a Blue Dress is a fictionalized account of the marriage of Charles and Catherine Dickens.Ms. Arnold bases the characters of this novel, Alfred and Dorothea(Dodo) Gibson on the real life marriage of Charles and Catherine Dickens... more specifically, the actual letters written by Charles to Catherine during their marriage. I fell in love with the writing of Charles DIckens in high school and have been one of his biggest fans ever since. Consequently, it was very difficult to read this thinly disguised, fictional account of his real life marriage and the miserable way he treated his wife. I needed to remind myself that the time period in the story was Victorian England and the lives of and even the attitudes of and about women were very different than they are today.

The story begins with the death of Alfred Gibson.. also known as 'the Great Original' and 'the One and Only'. This story is not full of action. It is mainly the musings and remembrances of Dorothea about her relationship with Alfred.They met at a young age and were very passionate supported about each other. They married and Dorothea supported and believed in Alfred through the lean times when he was trying to get his writing career off the ground. She bore him 10 children... 2 of which died. We witness the painful deterioration of their relationship and marriage... his blaming her for constantly being pregnant, her removal from the family home after charges were made (by Alfred) that she was crazy and an unfit mother and his developing new relationship with a young actress.

I alternately felt sympathy for and was annoyed by Dorothea and how, throughout the book, she continued to defend Alfred to their daughter, Kate, despite the way he had treated her. I was astonished that she could basically stay shut away in her little apartment, isolated and estranged from all but one of her children and yet continue to dwell on and remember the 'love' she shared with Alfred. Daily, she lost herself in the pages of the novels he wrote.. reading and rereading them. Finally though, after Alfred's death, Dorothea seemed to awake from her fantasy life. She began to venture out into the world and she began to find her voice again. as Dorothea and not just Alfred, 'the Great Original's' wife.By the end of the story, I was left feeling that there was hope for the future of this long suffering woman.

I very much enjoyed reading this book; although, at times I felt confused as to what was part of the 'real' life of Charles and Catherine Dickens and what was purely fictional. Since Ms. Arnold based this novel on on the actual letters that Charles Dickens wrote to Catherine, I thought that she perhaps should have just written a non-fiction account of their relationship. All in all, I thought this was a very good book. I will continue to marvel at and enjoy the works of Charles Dickens but I don't know if I will ever think of him personally in quite the same way I did before... always 'the Great Original' in his writing but perhaps not so much as a man.

[Cheryl Gatling]

This book begins in sadness and progresses into misery. The story opens as the great Victorian writer Alfred Gibson is being buried. His cast-off wife Dorothea (Dodo) is not invited to the funeral. It is a common enough sad old story that a man throws off the wife of his youth for a younger, prettier girl. But as Dodo relives the story of her marriage through flashbacks, her experience shows itself to be even darker. Alfred Gibson was like a force of nature. He was outgoing, brilliant, and funny. He entertained company by doing different voices and creating games. He charmed the ladies. He charmed everyone. He seemed to have boundless energy. Dodo fell for him hard. She lowered the neck of her best blue dress in an attempt to get him to notice her. And it worked. Their marriage began happily. But Dodo never had as much of Alfred's attention as she wanted. He gave himself to his writing, to friends, to charity causes, and increasingly, to his adoring reading public. He also developed an intense attachment to Dodo's sister. When Dodo expressed her concerns, she was ridiculed. That became the pattern. The great man could do no wrong. Dodo was a hysterical, whining harpy. It became worse when Dodo, exhausted from bearing eight children, invited her other sister in to be housekeeper. Under the pretense of providing Dodo with rest and quiet, Alfred and Sissy remove her from household responsibilities, alienate her from her children, drug her with laudanum if she complains, and then blame her for failing to be involved with the family. It was at this point at the middle of the book that I could hardly bear to continue reading. The height of humiliation was that, when Alfred removed her to a tiny apartment, he published a statement in the papers declaring Dodo an unfit wife and mother. She barely left the house for ten years.

This book is "inspired by the life and marriage of Charles Dickens." The names, and some of the situations are changed, but it stays so close to the real events of Dickens's life that I wondered why the author didn't just make it a historical novel about Dickens. The answer is that at the end, she is free to deviate from history and make things happen that probably didn't really happen. For example, Dodo grows a little backbone. She begins to speak up for herself, and to confront her "oppressors." The ending is as satisfying as it can be, given all that has happened.There are times in the story when Dodo seems a little bit too much of a dishrag to be likable. But in the end, while able to say, "I was wronged," she is also able to remain kind at heart and not embittered, which was something I liked very much.

[P.D.R. Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Long listed for the Man Booker Prize in 2008 , and rightly so, this literary historical novel is a gem. Based on the idea that being married to a great man and public figure is not what people imagine, or what the ‘Great Man’ says it is, Ms Arnold looks to Charles Dickens and his wife, Catherine Hogarth, for inspiration. She gives us the One and Only, the Great Original, Alfred Gibson, and his wife, Dorothea (Dodo). The story begins with the Great Man’s funeral and is told by his wife. No, this is not a feminist rant, but it is interesting that many so called ‘Great Men’ have wives who are ignored or regarded as inferior or actually damaging to the talent of the Great Man. It would be nice to hear their side of the story.

Here we have a wife who has been separated, by her husband, from her beloved children and lives in a mean flat with one servant, whilst the Great Man enjoys his mistress and his fame and the ten children she bore and loves. The novel could have been a rant or a bitter tale. Instead Dorothea not only deeply loves Alfred still, but, more importantly, she understands him. For every insult and hurt - he leaves his mistress a house and small fortune, she receives a servant’s annuity - she recounts the memories and good times. That she meekly accepts the injustices would seem improbable today, but because this is Victorian Britain, with the historical background skilfully woven into the plot, we understand that she was restricted by the mores and laws of that time.

In the end we readers are left feeling that if the meek have not exactly inherited the earth, at least there is hope. We see Dorothea finally reconnecting with her children after facing down her husband’s mistress and learning how much damage her husband had caused that innocent 17 year old actress he seduced. It’s a novel about choices and the other point of view. It’s not an easy read, but it is a delightful and thought provoking one.

[Allison · Rating 4 out of 5]

I may not appreciate Charles Dicken's writing, but his life certainly makes for a good novel. This was a very quick read, not only because it falls comfortably into the easily digestible language of the YA genre, but because it was well-paced, with the backstory woven into the "current" plot in a very logical, forward-moving sort of way. I generally do not appreciate "old England" sorts of books, either, but this one got the language just right. What's more, the characters were fully believable and multidimensional; the narrator was just the right amount of indignant, compassionate, wistful, and independent for her time, age, and station in life, and she told her story in an equally appropriate manner. Seeing Alfred (i.e. Dickens) through her eyes as well as the eyes of her friends and children in the way of 3rd party characters provided a fascinating spectrum of perspectives on the character, and fleshed out the novel.

My one and only complaint is that the author made herself "known," in the section where Dorothea (the narrator) begins to rant about women's liberation. While thematically presenting this idea was not far-fetched, Dorothea's making a scene over this subject was not consistent with her character's temperament, nor did it fit the situation. This was the only disruptive segment of the novel, and without it, Girl in a Blue Dress would have provided a seamless, compelling read from beginning to end. It's the sort of book that keeps the reader wrapped up in the world it has created, and as we all know, these are the best sorts of books. Escapism will forever be invaluable.

[BRT · Rating 2 out of 5]

A fictional story of a famous British author's marriage and it's disintegration. Based on the marriage of Charles Dickens, (only the names and some situations have been changed,) and told from the viewpoint of his wife. Upon the death of her husband, from the small home she's been banished to for ten years, she tells of their courtship and marriage in a series of remembrances. I recently read a fictionalized account of Albert Einstein's first wife, (and checked some historical sources for levels of accuracy,) and see some similarities. Both men had outsized talents which seemed to go hand in hand with outsized egos. Both were so wrapped up in their own legends that they were unnecessarily demanding and cruel to their loved ones. To be fair, in Dickens case, there may be evidence of manic depressive behavior on his part and his wife was most likely dealing with post-partum depression and pure exhaustion from birthing back-to-back children. Also, at that time, women had little to no rights, were essentially hired help with conjugal requirements. However, I have to wonder if society at that time was more likely to forgive someone of huge talent their flaws or, perhaps, separate the two. Or perhaps nowadays, with mass media & the social media mob mentality, it's too easy to know, or assume we know each person's actions, motivations, and intentions. I wonder how Einstein and Dickens would fare in today's see-all, know-all, judge-all society.

[Helen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this! Based on the marriage of Charles Dickens through the eyes of his wife Catherine. The names of the characters were changed for the purpose of this book but the foreword confirms the family on which it is based and the level of research done.

Alfred (Charles) was an endearing, colourful character who fell in love with the timid Dorothy (Catherine) when she was still young and pure. Once she had given birth, he turned his affections to her younger virginal sisters though insisted it was all above board and was horrified if anything else was suggested. You can imagine what this must have been like for Dorothy, who after giving birth to ten children, became fat, scared, withdrawn and everything Alfred despised. Later in life, he met a young actress and left his wife virtually penniless. When he died 10 years later, she wasn't even invited to his funeral.

A very poignant sentence in the afterword read - Catherine wanted to keep his letters so the whole world would know that he loved her once. Great read and not surprised it was nominated for the booker prize in 2008

[Bonnie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a "book of fiction" but although the names have been changed, it is the story of Charles Dicken's wife. I was completely absorbed in the story, so much so that I borrowed a biography of Dickens from the library to check certain facts and events. Dorothea (Catherine) was completely smitten when she first met Alfred (Charles) as a young girl. As he became more popular and widely read, their life together falls apart. She continues to adore him, but the burden of raising their 8 (10) children, the loss of two children, and the running of the household takes a toll. She is finally banished from the home, and he takes up with a pretty, young actress.
This book begins with Alfred's funeral, and through her memories and flashbacks, we see the pattern of their life. It is a moving story, and gives insight into life in Victorian times, the role of women, the demands of fame, and the power of redemption and forgiveness. The ultimate meeting of the two women is quite extraordinary.

[Diana · Rating 3 out of 5]

Like so many people, I am a big Charles Dickens fan. That being said, I definitely think the situation he perpetuated with his wife was in very poor taste. This book is based on Alfred and Dorothea "Dodo" Gibbons-but it is based on the Dickens' story. I know the author was trying to give Catherine Dickens a voice and a chance at redeeming her life after the death of her husband. I also understand that this all took place in a different place and time, but my frustration kept building as Dorothea spent her time lamenting her love for a man who basically turned her out. I also found her undying love for him, being stronger than her love for her own children, rather disgusting.
Spoiler-In the end, just because she got to talk to her husband's mistress and make superficial amends with her sister and children, I did not feel like the author's mission was accomplished. You are still left with a weak woman doing her husband's bidding and buying in to the character he built around himself. I was disappointed in Dodo from beginning to end.