Dickens' Fur Coat and Charlotte's Unanswered Letters: The Rows and Romances of England's Great Victorian Novelists

by Daniel Pool

"Children, Charlotte has been writing a book—and I think it is a better one than I expected."
—The Reverend Patrick Bronte, upon joining his daughters Emily and Anne for tea after first reading Jane Eyre

In his bestselling What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, Daniel Pool brilliantly unlocked the mysteries of the English novel. Now, in his long-awaited Dickens Fur Coat and Charlotte's Unanswered Letters, Pool turns his keen eye to England's great Victorian novelists themselves, to reveal the surprisingly human private side of their public genius.

And, for most of them, it was indeed the best of times and the worst of times:

*Charles Dickens, the literary superstar of the day, inspired havoc wherever he went while his domestic scandals became fodder for early gossip columnists.

*A shy and introverted Charlotte Bronte, after breaking onto the London literary scene from her secluded Yorkshire home of Haworth Parsonage, battled rumors about being Thackeray's mistress (while suffering unrequited love for her London publisher).

*George Eliot, deemed the most brilliant writer of her time, received public accolades but no calling cards, because she was "living in sin."

*Thackeray, while enjoying the success of Vanity Fair, had his own vanity singed when his children named their pets after the characters created by his archrival, Dickens.

Dickens' Fur Coat and Charlotte’s Unanswered Letters explores the outrageous publicity stunts, bitter rivalries, rows, and general mayhem perpetrated by this group of supposedly prudish—yet remarkably passionate and eccentric—authors and publishers. Against a vividly painted backdrop of London as the small world it once was, the book brings on the players in the ever-changing, brave new world of big publishing—a world that gave birth to author tours, big advances, "trashy" fiction, flashy bookstalls in train stations (for Victorian "airport fiction"), celebrity libel suits, bogus blurbs, even paper recycling (as unsold volumes reappeared as trunk linings, fish wrappings, and fertilizer).

Dickens Fur Coat and Charlotte’s Unanswered Letters is a springboard from which England's greatest novelists come to life. It is a delightful book for anyone who has been lost in the spell of Jane Eyre, Great Expectations, or Middlemarch—and longed to peer behind the heavy drapery of Victorian propriety at the private lives of these master storytellers, as they battled their publishers and won the devotion of an avid reading public.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Books About Books, Victorian, British Literature, 19th Century, Biography

282 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1997

About the author

Daniel Pool is the Librarian - Emerging Technology Specialist for Nash Library at USAO. He has been a staff member since 2013. He is an active member of the USAO Staff Association.
Daniel was born and raised in Oklahoma. He graduated from USAO in 2011 with a degree in Psychology. He graduated from the University of Oklahoma in 2017 with a degree in Library & Information Science.
Daniel enjoys writing fiction, programming video games, and producing podcasts in his spare time.

Reviews

[Nancy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is like The National Enquirer meets Masterpiece Theater and is a wonderfully engaging read! Learning about the "scandalous" lives of some of classical literature's greatest authors was both entertaining and enlightening. I'll never think about Dickens or the Bronte sisters the same way again!

[Kailey (Luminous Libro) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked reading about how the Victorian novel rose to prominence and the different literary trends that came and went during the Victorian era. It was interesting to learn more about some of my favorite authors.
However, the book just drags on and on with really dry writing that made it hard to concentrate, and the sentences are so convoluted and long that it was difficult to follow sometimes.

My favorite part of the book was learning about "yellow novels" that became popular in railway stations. You could rent a book from a bookstand in the station, read it on the train, and return the book at your destination. But these cheap books bound in yellow got a reputation for being sensational pot-boiler novels. They were not well-written and not serious literature, but they served a purpose in making literature available at cheap prices so that anyone could read books, not just those who were wealthy enough to buy expensive editions.

The history is really interesting, but I found myself skimming some of the lengthy paragraphs about this and that publishing house and how much money they paid for the publishing rights for some manuscript. I found the business side of things to be boring.

[Kate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pool's earlier book, "What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew" is an indispensable reference for anyone who has read or who looks forward to reading Edwardian or Victorian novels. I was expecting an equally instructive and interesting experience with this book.

But-- disappointed. The subtitle says it all, in that the subtitle is quite inaccurate. This book may touch on some of the "Rows and Romances of England's Great Victorian Novelists" but its proper subtitle ought to be "A Brief History of the Popularity and Publication of the Victorian Novel." Interesting in its way, but hardly the stuff of juicy revelations.

(And why did he omit the fact that Mary Ann Evans' new husband attempted suicide on their honeymoon? If YOU were going to write about Romances and Rows, you'd include that little event, wouldn't you?)

If you really want to investigate ROWS and ROMANCES among the Victorian literati, I highly recommend "Parallel Lives" by Phyllis Rose. THAT is juicy! (You may never see "A Christmas Carol" the same way after you've read its chapters on Charles Dickens.)

[Mark Stratton · Rating 3 out of 5]

By necessity, this glosses over many details yet was still an interesting overview of the rise of the Novel and Novelist in England during the 19th Century. The focus, of course, is on Charles Dickens and the Bronte sisters (Charlotte in particular) as well as Trollope, Thackery and "George Eliott" (and now I want to read 'Middlemarch') but also the publishers of the time. What was truly interesting to me was learning about how the Subscription Libraries drove the business model of the era for far longer than it otherwise would have, with their insistence on the Three Volume Novel (or Three Decker).

Not deep, not overly analytical, but fairly well written and entertaining while informative. If you have any interest at all in British Literature of the 19th Century, this book may be useful to you.

[Brenda Clough · Rating 2 out of 5]

A quick and dirty overview of the literary scene in the Victorian period. Mildly interesting, but you would get mere depth from biographies of any of the principals -- Tennyson, Dickens, Eliot, Thackeray.

[Megan · Rating 3 out of 5]

While some of the facts and incidents Pool relates are fascinating, the work as a whole is disjointed and hard to follow. Good luck keeping track of the large “cast of characters” and shifting timeline if you don’t have a thorough grounding in classic literature AND the Victorian era.

I did however, find the evolution of the novel format (from “three deckers” to serials, to one volume paperbacks ) and the rise and fall of various publishers interesting in light of modern shifts in the publishing industry, with the rise of ebooks, audiobooks, and self-publishing. It seems like fiction has never been uncoupled from technology or economy, so we shouldn’t expect the future to be any different.

[Bruce · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is the 'history' of the rise and sort of demise(?) of the Victorian novel. Easy reading, it takes the reader through the development of publishing novels as industrialization grew and education became more common. Various authors of the period, their writing 'styles', and the reasons for those styles document the novels rise from serialization to triple stack to single volumes. Bear in mind, the Victorian novel documents the social abuses of the times: child labor, prostitution, unsafe working conditions, corrupt government, et alia.

[Janet · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this; but then, I am the target reader: an English major with a Victorian focus . Since I've read at least one novel by most of those mentioned, it was interesting to read about their interactions with each other.
Although that is certainly covered in this book, however, it is equally a study of the publishing industry and the public attitude to and connection with novels.

[Paul Baker · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is an excellent overview of Victorian novelists and how they changed the British publishing industry. It may sound like a dry subject, but the author digs into the little quirks of Charles Dickens, William Makepeace Thackeray, the Bronte sisters, George Eliot, Anthony Trollope, Thomas Hardy, and even the American Henry James, who lived in London, so that he could get royalties from both British and American publishers.

The other side of the story is the growth of the publishing industry from extremely small presses where stationary was sold over the counter, while in back the presses cranked away and employees hand-stitched each volume to gigantic houses that cranked out over 100,000 volumes a year. A practice little-known in America was the British tradition of the "three-decker," a standard form of trilogy at the beginning of the Victorian era (1837) that authors were forced to work with because of demands of the private circulating libraries. Charles Dickens actually helped to break that mold by serializing his work in monthly magazines.

This is a fascinating book and I highly recommend it!

[Henry Percy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very readable. Snippets from the lives of the usual suspects: Dickens, the Brontes, Thackeray, Mrs. Gaskell. Better than reading a lengthy bio of one subject, where one wades through page after page of the quotidian in search of the arresting.

[Suzanne Hess · Rating 1 out of 5]

If you are new to reading about the era this book is fun. If you already know the basics, and were hoping for more, this book will disappoint.

[Sydney · Rating 5 out of 5]

Not what I expected but surpassed what I had hoped for.
5 stars for a brilliant, incredibly detailed narrative, focusing on Charles Dickens and the birth of the novel.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

With this title, I expected a more humorous book. This was actually a history of serial books and publishing in England in the Victorian Era. A good deal about Dickens, the Brontes, Henry James, William Thackeray, George Eliot and their books.

[Theo · Rating 2 out of 5]

It's an interesting book about Victorian publishing and the novelist as a celebrity, but probably with no new information if you've read any major author bios of the time period and written in a pseudo-Victorian style that was kind of a slog.

[Moira Fogarty · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book moved along well in the first two-thirds, where Pool focused on his main object: writing juicy, gossipy biographies of the great authors of the Victorian era. His description of the social connections, passions and rivalries between Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot, the Bronte sisters and other big names in publishing, bookselling and writing in the mid-1800s is a pleasure to read.

Towards the end of the book, Pool struggles to show a clear movement in the direction of the tastes and morals of the English reading public, and significant change in the former monopoly of select lending libraries and booksellers (Mudie's Circulating Library and W.H. Smith's railway book stalls).

The authors Pool has so engagingly made real for us are dying, and after the death of the great Dickens somewhere around page 190 the forward motion of the book slows to a near halt, and the excitement of the narrative completely deflates.

Long lists of numbers that would have been better relegated to an Appendix of charts and graphs are shoved rudely into the story, and the reader is forced to slog through a number of short paragraphs that have little connection to the larger narrative and mention names and characters that have not been fleshed out in the course of the text, dropped in like an afterthought.

It felt like Pool was struggling to reach an allocated 250-page goal, as there are a larger number of photographs and reproductions of author's contracts in the last 20 pages than in the rest of the book; pure padding.

All in all, I would consider reading Mr. Pool's earlier work, but I don't think I would struggle as hard to finish it next time, knowing that there is no golden reward for bullying through a dry spell at the conclusion of what was otherwise a very fun, educational and entertaining read.

[Meaghan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had thought, judging from the title and dust jacket description, that this would just be a book of juicy, entertaining gossip about Victorian novelists. Well, certainly there was a lot of that in there -- did you know William Thackeray had a crazy wife he had to keep locked up? -- but this book is ever so much more than that.

It covers the development of the Victorian novel and the publishing industry over the 19th century. In the early 1800s, public libraries in England were nonexistent. Books were so rare and expensive that only wealthy people actually owned them and instead they were rented from circulating libraries (sort of like Blockbuster for books). The circulating libraries were very powerful and had an iron grip on the publishing industry. By the end of the century, books had become cheap and were sold at railroad stalls, and everyone was reading them. And it was a long, sometimes dramatic ride in between.

I learned a great deal more from this book than I had expected to. I feel richer for having read it.

[Cat. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of minutiae about Dickens and the Brontës along with Thackeray, Eliot, Hardy, Trollope and all the "lesser lights." I remember learning in high school that Dickens dumped his wife (my term, by the way); this gets into some more detail, but not much. I still don’t get it completely, and it’s shocking that Victorian novelists as a whole were apparently less concerned with propriety: Dickens leaves his wife to hang about with an actress much younger than he, Thackeray put his wife in an asylum, George Eliot was living in sin with a married man (which is why she wrote under a man’s name--it wasn’t exactly a secret who she was), and so on. Charlotte Brontë was in love with her (younger) publisher and when scorned by him married her father’s rector and then almost immediately died. What a group of characters. Almost enough to get a novel from their lives alone! It’s a good reminder that those uptight 19th century Brits weren’t actually as disciplined as we'd think. At least some of them weren’t!

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is deceptively titled but still a great read. It's about the growth and transitions of the Victorian era book, publisher and author. The traditional novel was a "three decker" named after a sailing ship. The novels were published in 3 volumes at least since the time of Scott and Austen. Dickens and his magazine publishers created a new format for the novel. The serialization of chapters published and then collected into a single book was new format. Publishers as a rule had a back room for their press with a retail operation in the front to support themselves. With more novels being written and published and sales increasing, publishers and writers made more money and their influence increased. The "Lending Libraries" also had great power in their purchase of multiple copies of a work. So, appearances by Dickens, Eliot, the Bronte sisters, Thackeray, and James do add to the narrative. And the title.... Dickens wore a fur coat to America. Women reached out with scissors to snip pieces from the Great Man. Charlotte's letters were to Thackeray. It was a one way affair.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent read about the history of publishing! Although the title of the book seems to suggest scintillating tales about Victorian novelists' private lives, it instead provides a historical account of how the novel as we know it today came to be, including the advent of royalties, the business of publishing, and the different tactics used by publishing houses to compete with one another, one of which is what we now know of as tabloid journalism. Author Daniel Pool brings wit and intelligence to what would probably be an otherwise dry subject--a nice surprise, despite readers' expectations upon reading the title.

[Sandra Strange · Rating 4 out of 5]

You wouldn't think that the history of publishing in 19th C England and the development of the Victorian novel would serve up fascinating reading, but it does in this chronicle of people all of us have studied--including Dickens, the Brontes, Thackery, Gaskell, Eliot (George). Gossipy, but well documented, the book paints portraits of these novelists, as well as their publishers, as real people motivated by the desire for money and glory, religious fervor, pride and love. Fascinating, fun and informative for anyone interested in classics.

[Emma · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a perfect example if why one should wait to rate a book for a few days after finishing. When I first finished the book, I thought it was interesting but didn't really feel strongly about it. However, as a few days have gone by I have thought back on it more than I expected and realized what an excellent book it is on a topic I knew little about. Whil appearing, from the title, to be little more than Victorian gossip it's rather a work on the beginnings of "the novel" and its move from one of distaste to necessity.

[Mikiel Ottmar]

Very interesting and entertaining. For a history buff it offers a bit of everything. The research is outstanding and he brings it all together in a wonderful read. What evolved in the Victorian age with novels is incomparable and thank goodness for all of those forward looking writers and publishers. I've pulled off my shelves several of the novels mentioned which will take me through the rest of the winter and into spring. mikiel

[Ami · Rating 4 out of 5]

I loved reading about all of my favorite (and least favorite) authors. It was like a Victorian soap opera in word form, and I got to enjoy all the scandal, disease, and gossip while simultaneously feeling educated and intelligent. I thought it was better than Daniel Pool's previous book, "What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew." (And that book was very interesting.)

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book. It's a lovely compendium of facts of daily life in 19th century England and an entertaining social history. Lots of interesting stuff, and the reader comes away with a much better grasp of the world that Dickens and Jane Austen, and their contemporary authors, lived in, and wrote about.

[Marty · Rating 4 out of 5]

For any one who loves 19th century writers - Dickson, Austen, Trollope, Hardy, this is a must read about their lives and the process of publication - what went on at the time of their writings. Lots of books are mentioned, and I have read most of them, so it was more than a readers guide with no relevance.

[Kayla Tornello · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book explores the lives of the famous Victorian authors. It also explains how they were influenced in their writings by the society in which they lived. Some parts of this book were very fascinating and I wanted to like it, but then other parts seemed as dry as a school history book and I was bored.

[Hh · Rating 3 out of 5]

Factual but not too dry --lots of facts I never cared to know and will never remember about various Victorian authors, but a fairly interesting description of the interactions between Dickens and Thackeray.

[Tammy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first 30 pages are fascinating on how England's Victorian novels were written. Some biography and stories of how Dicken's Pickwick, Oliver Twist and Nickleby came to be written. Cant put it down.

[Tammy · Rating 5 out of 5]

In spite of the somewhat silly title, this is a very interesting book about Victorian-era British novelists and their time. The history provides useful context for the novels referenced. Highly recommended for readers who enjoy fiction from that era.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love knowing some of the personal history behind the Victorian authors and how that whole genre came into being. It is my favorite period reading but then I have British blood in me, so maybe it's generic.