The Turning Point: A Year that Changed Dickens and the World

by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst

A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR The year is 1851. It's a time of radical change in Britain, when industrial miracles and artistic innovations rub shoulders with political unrest, poverty and disease. It's also a turbulent time in the life of Charles Dickens, as he copes with a double bereavement and early signs that his marriage is falling apart. But this year will become the turning point in Dickens's career, as he embraces his calling as a chronicler of ordinary people's lives. The Turning Point transports us into the foggy streets of Dickens's London, closely following the twists and turns of a year that would come to define him, and forever alter Britain's relationship with the world.'Sparklingly informative' Guardian'Wonderfully entertaining' Observer'It is hard to imagine a better book on Dickens' New Statesman

Genres: Nonfiction, Biography, History, Literature, British Literature, Literary Fiction

356 pages, Kindle Edition

Published September 2, 2021

About the author

Douglas-Fairhurst is Professor of English Literature at Oxford University and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. His books include Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a Novelist and The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland.

Reviews

[Kalliope · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1851 in between the smashing Crystal Palace and a Bleak House in paper was Charles Dickens and his world.

This is a highly readable and entertaining recreation of the everyday in the London of that year, as seen and lived by the not-yet-forty-year-old Dickens. According to Douglas-Fairhurst, a Fellow at the Oxford Magdalen College, this year was a Turning Point in history, for it marked the beginning of Britain as the uncontested leader in the new industrial economy, as well as in the literary genre of the Novel.

The reader is walked through the seasons of 1851 – drawing attention to the potent change that the railways brought about (in this The Europeans: Three Lives and the Making of a Cosmopolitan Culture makes a stronger case), which inspired Dickens in seeing an analogy in the way the carriages moved with those of words forming lines in a page. The world of theatre, which strongly attracted Dickens and in which he involved himself committedly, pushed for the recognition of an author’s writes – and to this Dickens lent his support particularly.

Like anything new and astounding, the Crystal Palace drew admiration and criticism. I learnt that Paxton, its creator, was the gardener of the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, and it was in the Duke’s London House, now disappeared, where Dickens staged several of his theatrical productions.

This was also a personally sad year for Dickens, since his infant daughter Dora died (as did Darwin’s), but his domestic life had not yet turned sour, and apart from getting hold of a new lease for his London address, in Tavistock House, in Bloomsbury, and for which he spent a generous amount in redecorating it, he also spent time on the coast in Broadstairs.

While in the world of letters, Melville’s novel Moby-Dick or, the Whale was published albeit in a somewhat amputated and distorted form; Hawthorne’s The House of the Seven Gables; Gaskell’s Cranford; while Brontë’s Villette was in the cooking. But during this 1851 Dickens was very much engaged with the journals Household Words, from which he gathered support for his Guild of Writers and Artists. His conviction that such a Guild was necessary became one of the points of disagreement with Thackeray.

But it was during this year in which Dickens gradually envisioned his Bleak House (serialized from 1852-1853) a new type of novel, much more complex than his previous narratives on a picaresque tone. The use of parallel narrators, the more complex plot with the tinge of a thriller, a more belligerent attitude regarding social change, as well as a change in tone, signal Bleak House as the first of his “dark” novels (followed by Little Dorrit and Hard Times).

This was a highly enjoyable read, proposing an original approach to a literary biography. Following this I have also purchased his The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and the Secret History of Wonderland. My only twinge is that the title, and part of the thesis of the whole book, namely “that 1951 changed the world”, smells too much of the interference of the Editors pushing for the histrionic. We can tell ourselves that Britain avoided the 1848 social upheavals, but yes, it had its London Crystal Palace. A different type of Turning Point.

[Peter · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some books inform, some books instruct, and some books leave you scratching your head. This was a head-scratcher.

To me, this book meandered about, seemed to take forever to get to the turning point of 1851, and then left me wondering what the quintessential point was in the text. Perhaps I’m confused.

Different books engage people in different ways. For me, this book did not instruct, did not enlighten and did not inform me of enough to recommend it beyond three stars.

[Jason Furman · Rating 4 out of 5]

When you read about Charles Dickens’ life it is striking how much he did other than write his novels. He edited journals, starred and produced in amateur theatricals, did readings, engaged in charitable works, and much much more. After a frenzied start to his writing career (e.g., the writing and publication of The Pickwick Papers and Oliver Twist overlapped), he could go years at time without even working on a novel. It is tempting to wonder whether all of this was time well spent when he only produced 15 novels, much less than the similarly energetic and peripatetic but more focused on writing Honoré de Balzac. The amateur theatricals were, presumably, entertaining for the few hundred people who were involved or saw them but the time could have been used to build on the permanent legacy that Charles Dickens created for humanity.

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst’s The Turning Point helps to partially answer this question by providing a detailed biography of a single year in Dickens' life: 1851. It is an interesting choice because Dickens published nothing of note that year (just some articles in his journal Household Words and much of A Child's History of England). None of the dramatic events of his life (e.g., meeting Ellen Ternan) happened that year, beyond the death of his father, and the year does not even appear in some chronologies of the major events of Dickens’ life and career.

Douglas-Fairhurst, however, chooses this year because Dickens wrote the first several chapters of Bleak House towards the end of 1851 with serial publication starting in March 1852. Bleak House is my favorite Dickens novel and widely considered the beginning of a new darker more complex phase of his writing. By putting the year 1851 under a microscope it is interesting to come across various serendipitous events or thoughts that eventually get reworked into the novel.

Douglas-Fairhurst does not write retroactively, he doesn’t start out to say let’s find everything that led to Bleak House. Instead he writes prospectively, talking about a minute series of events, some of which end up mattering for Dickens’ writing but most of which h do not. In a way, that helps address the question I began with.

I would not recommend this book for newcomers to Dickens. You don’t need much knowledge of his writing (although if you haven’t read Bleak House it would be hard to find this interesting), but there are much better biographies of his entire life or of another turning point year, the one in which he wrote A Christmas Carol, of even Douglas-Fairhurst's Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a Novelist. But if you’re a big Dickens fan you’ll want to read this one too.

[Ade · Rating 4 out of 5]

3½ stars really, although that's partly because I'm not familiar with most of Dickens' works. The historical details, particularly around the Great Exhibition, were very well related but I remain unconvinced by the subtitle.

[David · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a very detailed study of 1851 - the year of the Great Exhibition- from the perspective of Charles Dickens. The author unearths copious facts about the Exhibition itself, the design and construction of Paxton's Crystal Palace, its impact on British Society and, of course, upon the development of Dickens' artistry, with a particular focus on Bleak House, which was published in serial form from the start of the following year.
The author explores the relationship between Dickens and other literary figures, including Eliot, Thackeray, Gaskell and Bulwer Lytton and unearths some fascinating details about literary rivalry in the mid-19th century. We are also given an insight into Dickens family life which appears to have been dominated by the patriarch's boundless energy and domineering attitude and opinions.
I've read quite a few biographies of Dickens and, whilst still having total admiration for his art and sheer energy, I find that the more I read, the more impossibly overbearing and unpleasant he appears to have been.
Nevertheless, a fascinating book and well worth reading.

[Brian Willis · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly loved Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a Novelist by the same author, which explained how Dickens achieved prominence and how his earlier experiences informed his work. This book, which follows the micro-history approach of James Shapiro and Stephen Greenblatt to tell the story of Shakespeare, attempts to do the same with one of his best works, Bleak House.

It's 1851, and the social-historical events of the day are detailed, as is the great Crystal Palace Exhibition of that year, certainly a highlight of Victoria's reign. It dominated discussion in London that year, with the main criticism being that it was glut of surface opulence with perhaps less substance. Douglas-Fairhurst argues that Bleak House grew out of that criticism to express the substance behind the surface diagnosis of London society, but that only becomes apparent in the final chapter.

I thought this was slightly less successful than his prior effort, and the cultural historicism of Shapiro and Greenblatt, mainly because we know far more of Dickens's life in 1851 (Shakespeare in 1599 or in his London habitation has far more sparse records). While the goal of investigating what inspired Dickens to write Bleak House is admirable, it doesn't quite connect the dots and becomes more of an 1851 mosaic.

That said, I still enjoyed the book and it is of course impeccably researched. If you are interested in Victorian history circa 1851, you will love it. You'll probably enjoy it as a Dickens fan. Monumental authors such as Dickens and Shakespeare do benefit from the micro-biographical approach currently in vogue. This span of time probably occupies 20 pages in a full length biography; here we get to see what probably concerned Dickens from the newspapers at the time he was gestating his monumental novel. I'm not sure it quite lives up to the billing of the title, but it is a worthwhile read if these are your reading interests.

[John Kinkade · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wanted so badly for this to be as good as his first book on Dickens, but I thought this was a slog for much of the history. I'm totally in on the importance of the Great Exhibition marking a turning point in 19th-century Britain, but the connection to Dickens (even though I buy the idea that the title "Bleak House" could be a direct response to "Crystal Palace") doesn't work as clearly as he hoped. There ends up being a whole lot of history that (ironically, given what Bleak House is doing) feels disconnected from the overall argument. However, the reading of Bleak House that he offers goes a loooong way towards making me think that it's worth reading. But still only 3.5 stars max; I'm really rounding up based on affection for that reading and prose style.

[Matt Carton · Rating 3 out of 5]

⭐️⭐️⭐️-1/2. Douglas-Fairhurst spends the first 2/3 of this double-bio of London and Dickens in 1851 setting up connections for the inspirations for Bleak House (e.g. Skimpole and Mrs. Jellyby) and then delivers with an analysis of BH that is downright masterful.

[Sharon · Rating 3 out of 5]

A detailed look at Dickens during a pivotal year in his career.

[Loudon McAndrew · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dickens is my favourite author but the contents of this book lowered my opinion of him as a man. I knew that he had left his wife Catherine a few years after 1851 which triggered the title of the book but I didn’t realise the extent of his selfishness.
His hypocrisy and almost sycophantic behaviour to people like the Duke of Devonshire was mainly to further his own ends,particularly in his secondary interest as an actor in his own plays.
However, I am still an ardent Dickens fan and this book lets me look at his novels in a different light.

[Ian Thomson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crackling with Mischief
The Turning Point by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst

I began reading this intriguing book in October but other business forced me to put it down. I took it up again in that strange province of suspended animation between Boxing Day and Epiphany and devoured it along with the mince pies, the stollen cake, the chocolates, the madeira and champagne - and this was appropriate because the book is a feast of good things.
What kind of book is it? Hard to say. It is not included in Polonius’ catalogue certainly. It is a genre-buster, a syncretic cornucopia of biography; of social, political, literary and technological history; of literary analysis and criticism. It is a history of Dickens the man, of revolutions, quiet or otherwise, in England (and London in particular), in Britain and the Empire. It examines ways in which those histories changed Dickens and how Dickens changed history.
The brilliant conceit of the book is to make the task tractable by limiting its remit to the year 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition and the year in which Dickens begins one of his greatest works, Bleak House. The book’s subtitle is The Year That Changed Dickens and the World, and the words ‘turning point’ run through the book like a leitmotif. In Dickens’ work it appears in David Copperfield and Great Expectations. Douglas-Fairhurst has opened a rich seam for what is a revolution etymologically but a turning point?
London. The book’s first verbless utterance mirrors the opening of Bleak House where mud and fog become extended metaphors for the obfuscation and procrastinations of the High Court of Chancery. The fact that there is no active verb in the novel until the fourth paragraph enacts the inertia at the heart of institutions that are meant to serve the public. The threads of the plot go on to weave with such complexity that it seems that there is no way out; not for nothing is Lady Dedlock at the heart of things. But as Douglas-Fairhurst points out: ‘Dickens had created a world where hidden secrets would always be brought to light.’ There is a dénouement of course, and it is interesting to find Dickens characterised as an escapologist. This corresponds with his constant reinvention of himself. We are told that he liked to play with his name as if it were plural and that he gave himself inventive nicknames such as ‘Gaslight Boy’ and ‘Robert Flexible.’
Dickens’ work is concerned, not only with the leaden-headed obstructiveness of institutions, but with all the injustices that beset the poor and the dispossessed. Relief, he believes, can only come from - wait for the magic word - progress. It is amusing to note that he considered the Pre-Raphaelite brotherhood as ‘backward’. In this he is in tune with the zeitgeist, championed by Prince Albert, and whose outward and visible sign is the Great Exhibition. I enjoyed learning that Charles Kingsley preached in a sermon that the exhibition was ‘one of the proofs of the Kingdom of God’; that Ruskin, on the other hand, thought it was nothing more than a giant greenhouse, while a seventeen-year old William Morris was so distressed by the vulgar materialism of the spectacle that he rushed outside and threw up in the bushes. It is spicy morsels like this that make the book so enjoyable to read.
It seems that Dickens himself was ambiguous in his response to the momentous event. He found it bewildering: ‘I don’t say there’s nothing in it,’ he wrote in a letter, ‘ - there’s too much,’ and, while the world was marvelling at the glass cathedral of ‘clutter’ and the global transformations that it represented - with an increasingly industrialised Britain at its hub, Dickens was trying to effect progressive transformations on a smaller scale.
In keeping with the philanthropic currents of the age, we learn, for example, that Dickens was trying to establish an organisation for the relief and support of struggling authors: the Guild of Literature and Art. To promote the enterprise he devised and mounted a production at Devonshire House of a play called: ‘Not As Bad As We Seem’. Douglas-Fairhurst gives us a very funny account of the sometimes farcical mishaps in the performance which was attended by the Queen and Prince Albert. Later her Majesty confided to her diary that the play was ‘full of cleverness but rather too long’. Despite the prodigious energy that Dickens put into trying to institute the Guild, it never really took off, perhaps partly due to the antipathy of his rival, Thackeray, who claimed that it threatened ‘to make literature a chronic beggary.’
For Dickens, it was more important that progress have a moral as well as a material direction and impetus. He set up, at his own expense, Urania Cottage, a refuge for ‘fallen women’. Its inmates were mostly former prostitutes and thieves. It was run strictly but kindly and Dickens visited regularly to oversee its smooth running and to ensure that the girls and women were treated according to his precepts. There were disappointments and relapses, but many inmates were saved from the workhouse and worse. Of course, the venture provided the literary omnivore with much potential material, but his primary purpose seems to have been genuinely charitable.
The Turning Point is not a hagiography, but one cannot help but be impressed by Dickens’ exceptional energy as he walks briskly about London, affecting an air of preoccupation but, in reality, imaginatively alert, missing nothing that might be grist to his fictive mill and which, though ordinary and everyday in itself, will undergo a transformation into something fresh and original. London’s population offered him characters of every class and complexion, from the supercilious rich to the indigent and abandoned, along with all the social stations in between. Not only do his daily walks take him all over the city, but he is given to walking many miles at night too. ‘I suppose, Sir, that I know London better than any one other man of all its millions,’ and as Douglas-Fairhurst observes: ‘He needed to be surrounded by life in order to recreate it on the page.’
Though not essentially a book of literary criticism, there is a good deal of it, both in passing and in more extended passages too. It is always astute and enlightening - and very readable too. Not for this writer the pompous obfuscations of far too much literary criticism of the past decades. His writing has the vigour of that of his subject; he describes Dickens’ style as ‘heartfelt but crackling with mischief’ - like a merry fire. This might be an appropriate description of Douglas-Fairhurst’s own style - ‘crackling’ is a favourite word.
He writes, for instance, of ‘the characteristic double-helix of [Dickens’] style’ - an intertwining of instruction and entertainment. Or take this:

The seaside was a place where he could enjoy words behaving like waves, dividing and rejoining in ever new combinations.

Or this:

[Dickens] writes scenes in which he briefly jerks buildings into life, producing doorknockers that leer or windows that glare glassily down the street.

This is prose worthy of Dickens himself (especially that ‘glassily’).
This is a scholarly work, bold in conception, encyclopaedic in its range of reference, and incisive in its analyses, and yet it is immensely readable, packed with stylistic felicities and keen wit. One might say, with conviction, that it does indeed crackle ‘like a merry fire’.

[Michael Reilly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Douglas-Fairhurst says that this book is "slow biography". His plan is to recreate Dicken's world and experience in one year.

1851 was the year between "David Copperfield", published in November of 1850, and "Bleak House", which began to be published serially in March 1852. Most critics see it as Dickens' turning point from lighter straight forward novels to his later darker more complex stories.

D-F sets out to give a full sense of the year. The Great Exhibition in London, featuring the Crystal Palace was the biggest event that year. Railroads were built at record rates. London was flooded with new magazines, including Dickens'. Woman wearing Bloomers were a public scandal.

Dickens was 39 in 1851. It is exhausting to read how much he did. Dickens was actively editing his magazine, "Household Words" and writing many of the articles for it. He bought a new house and micromanaged the rehabilitation of it. He organized and directed elaborate full dress plays for charity purposes. He helped run Urania Cottage, a home he had established and help fund for "wayward girls". He organized a fund to support indigent authors. In his spare time, he took two trips to Paris. He went for long walks as often as possible. He published a cookbook of his wife's recipes. He dealt in 1851 with the death of his father and his youngest daughter Dora.

It is easy to understand the reaction of the Irish writer Justin McCarthy when he met Dickens. "Dickens rather frightened me..... His manner was full of energy; there was something physically overpowering about it... The very vehemence of his cheery good-humour rather bore one down"

The last section of the book is a fairly close look at "Bleak House". It is my favorite Dickens novel, but I did not get much from the analysis. More generally I did not really understand the connection between the incredibly active life Dickens lead in 1851 and his decision to write that particular novel. Dickens cannibalized everything he saw and did for his novels, so it is always true that pieces of his experience end up in the novels. But I did not get what caused 1851 to be a turning point.

This is an excellent portrait of Dickens at the height of his powers. D-F has done deep research and he succeeds at giving a feel for what it was like in 1851 England.

[Marcella · Rating 4 out of 5]

It is a dangerous thing to delve into the biography of an artist you admire. Separating the art from the artist is an Olympic feat of willpower when the artist turns out to be a controlling husband and father, mistress keeper, and not as racially progressive as one would like. Still, the enduring power of Charles Dickens' writing and colorful personal life sweeps aside such sins and turns one's head back to his books like a magician pouring milk into a hat and pulling out a rabbit. The Turning Point is full of exhaustive detail about Dickens' life and the life of the UK in one particular year, dazzling (and sometimes drowning) with details about the Crystal Palace, bloomers, theaters, trains, and Victorian real estate. I learned much, but I will be attempting to forget much of the damning personal details as I can so I can read my next Dickens novel without loathing the author too much.

I partly borrowed this title because the audiobook was available at the same time. The audiobook narrator Philip Stevens is very entertaining and especially good with creating voices, including the ones in quotations from Dickens' works.

[Ann Otto · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author combines the many changes in British culture after the 1848 revolts in Europe and unrest in Britain with Dickens' life at the time including how these changes affected his life and work. The world was increasingly interconnected due in part to the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in London in 1851. The early parts of the book focus on Dickens' influence as a journalist through his Household Words publication. But by the end, we learn much about his writing process and how his novels were enhanced by his ability to use a journalist's attention to detail in describing 1840s London. We meet many writers and playwrights he associated with at a time when the fields of technology, literature and the arts were becoming accepted as professions. Douglas-Fairhurst makes his point that 1851 was a turning point based on many famous works written in Britain and the United States and other firsts.

[Phil Atteberry · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. Fairhurst knows a lot about Dickens, and I learned many small details that I didn't know. However, the overall thesis is a stretch, I think. Fairhurst argues, among other things, that Bleak House, which Dickens began in late 1851, begins a new direction in his writing career. In some ways, that is true. But in other ways, it continues a trajectory that had been established far earlier.

Fairhurst calls this a "slow biography" in that he takes time to investigate thoroughly the details of Dickens' life during a single year. That's an interesting approach. The last third of the book is mostly a close reading of the early chapters of Bleak House. His reading is insightful and innovative, but I think at times he over-reads the text.

In short, this is an academic book. It is only for people who have read a lot of Dickens and who have some familiarity with the Victorian period. But for those folks, it will likely be an interesting read.

[T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I have read many biographical studies of The Inimitable and when this one appeared with good reviews, I went for it.

The first hundred pages are not centered on Dickens but what was going on in 1851 or thereabouts. None of this is news to me and some of seems a bit tangential to the Infant Phenomenon himself.

Dickens was acutely aware of everything going on in society at all times! Of course, whatever was happening in 1851 would show up somehow in his massive outpouring of work. I can't see so far why 1851 was all that special given the overall continuous cultural, political and economic transformation that rampaged along in the 1800s.

The discussion includes some interesting points, but seems a little meandering and diffuse. And my pet peeve: no captions on images. What's that all about? Are captions suddenly old fashioned?

Can't wait to get to the Dickens part....

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well-written and thoroughly researched, The Turning Point is a welcome addition to Dickens' scholarship. Thanks to the Crystal Palace and the Great Exhibition, 1851 is frequently cited as a year to be reckoned with in England (and the world, to a slightly lesser extent). For Dickens, it was the year his father died, and his infant daughter Dora, and the year that he started Bleak House. Of course, in Dickens' relatively short life, just about every year can be reckoned as a turning point in one way or another, but nonetheless plenty happened in 1851, and it makes a fine year-in-the-life of the great writer.

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Adds detail to Ackroyd and Tomalin. Well researched, thorough and with a few new plums to pull out of the pudding. It sets itself along the hypothesis that Bleak House can be best explained by a close biographical study of Dickens’ 1850-51 season. And it works...to a point. The book builds up to its winter climax and glitters for 20 pages as the professor of literature shows off his real skills; literary criticism rather that biography (or micro biography as he chooses to term it). The attempt to follow the hypothesis is the strength of the book (and it is a good book) but also its Achilles heal.

[Allegra Goodman · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book focusing on a crucial year in Dickens' life. Douglas-Fairhurst is not only a wonderful researcher but a great storyteller, adeptly weaving evidence from Dickens' life and from the outer world to illuminate the beginnings of his novel "Bleak House" and the turn from Dickens' youthful work to his great dark later novels. Beautifully dramatized, 1851 is the year Dickens begins to figure out where to go from early success. He is already a satirist, a social commentator, and a great commercial novelist, and now, Douglas-Fairhurst suggests, he becomes a great artist. How does it happen? Start reading now!

[Kelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love the genre of biography, and while this “slow biography” is enlightening, I feel that such a thing would be more engaging if the subject were not a figure who already has sooooo much scholarship, so many words (his own and others) dedicated to paper. The more I read, the more I wanted to hear Catherine or other people actively dismissed by him.
Of course everyone has their own interests to follow, and this is well researched and executed.

[C Moore · Rating 4 out of 5]

(4.5 stars) I have read several Dickens biographies, but this is an entirely new project in my experience: Robert Douglas-Fairhurst seeks to explore a year in the life of this famous and much written-about writer. As a result, it becomes an amalgamation of biography, history, and — perhaps my favorite portion — close reading. An informative and enjoyable read, and one that, if nothing else, makes me want to re-read Bleak House.

[Candia L · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is essentially divided in two: the first three quarters shows the author frenetically editing his weekly magazine, setting up Urania Cottage for fallen women, entertaining, organising a drama production, attending the Great Exhibition in Crystal Palace. The last quarter gathers all of this experience up and transforms it to inspiration, placing him at his desk writing Bleak House.

[Steven Mott · Rating 3 out of 5]

on the origin of Bleak House and his novels that followed.

dicken's reaction to popular British press applauding Britain's greatness.

not easy to follow the author. he seems to have decided what ground he would cover and covers it all with the reader dragged along for the jaunt.

1851 as Dickens tipping point.

[Jenni · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not as tight, say, as James Shapiro's 1599; it seems to be more "things that happened in 1851 and things that Dickens did while he was getting ready to write Bleak House", rather than anything that really ties the context to the novel.

[Ronald H. Blumer · Rating 4 out of 5]

Great to put Dickens in the context of his times and also to link him with his daily activities apart from novel writing and particularly useful to integrate the articles that he edited in Household Words which is often ignored by scholars.

[Julie Stielstra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Just didn't work for me. Too much stuffing of everything and anything. Even though the focus is on 1851, sometimes the support for assertions came from years before or after. Just couldn't get engaged in the scattershot approach - disappointing. YMMV.

[Paganus Kiley · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a tremendous amount of information in this book; that was it's main attraction. However, was the author's intent met? You are left in doubt. It was a hard slog, a wandering tale, sometimes almost pointless. That said, I enjoyed the information, so I was inclined to give it a 3.

[Stephanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This took a little while but I am glad that I finished it. Dickens is and always will be one of my favorite authors. Thank you Mr. Douglas Fairhurst for the research and lovely writing.

[Leila · Rating 3 out of 5]

There were a number of very interesting facts, but the book read more like a textbook and, therefore, was boring!

[Mary · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting but quite jumbled in its telling.