The Mystery of Charles Dickens, A.N. Wilson
The Mystery of Charles Dickens, A.N. Wilson
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The Mystery of Charles Dickens

Author: A.N. Wilson

Narrator: Mark Meadows

Unabridged: 9 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: HarperAudio

Published: 08/04/2020


Synopsis

A lively and insightful biographical celebration of the imaginative genius of Charles Dickens, published in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of his death.Charles Dickens was a superb public performer, a great orator and one of the most famous of the Eminent Victorians. Slight of build, with a frenzied, hyper-energetic personality, Dickens looked much older than his fifty-eight years when he died—an occasion marked by a crowded funeral at Westminster Abbey, despite his waking wishes for a small affair. Experiencing the worst and best of life during the Victorian Age, Dickens was not merely the conduit through whom some of the most beloved characters in literature came into the world. He was one of them.Filled with the twists, pathos, and unusual characters that sprang from this novelist’s extraordinary imagination, The Mystery of Charles Dickens looks back from the legendary writer’s death to recall the key events in his life. In doing so, he seeks to understand Dickens’ creative genius and enduring popularity. Following his life from cradle to grave, it becomes clear that Dickens’s fiction drew from his life—a fact he acknowledged. Like Oliver Twist, Dickens suffered a wretched childhood, then grew up to become not only a respectable gentleman but an artist of prodigious popularity. Dickens knew firsthand the poverty and pain his characters endured, including the scandal of a failed marriage. Going beyond standard narrative biography, A. N. Wilson brilliantly revisits the wellspring of Dickens’s vast and wild imagination, to reveal at long last why his novels captured the hearts of nineteenth century readers—and why they continue to resonate today. 


About A.N. Wilson

A. N. Wilson grew up in Staffordshire, England, and was educated at Rugby and New College, Oxford. A Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, he holds a prominent position in the world of literature and journalism. He is a prolific and award-winning biographer and celebrated novelist. He lives in North London.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Nora on November 28, 2024

I really enjoyed this book and learning more about one of my all time favorite authors even though their life was so much darker than I expected it to be. It may prove triggering to readers at times so please check the trigger warnings. I didn’t really like the fact that the author kept trying to in......more

Goodreads review by Cindy on October 31, 2022

Fascinating look at Dickens which may or may not be a correct assessment.......more

Goodreads review by Kathy on August 18, 2020

This fine research is amplified with personal reflections making the reading a more excellent experience deserving of any and all Dickens fans. Library Loan......more

Goodreads review by Steve on May 25, 2021

This is an unusual book that is less a biography and more a meditation on the "mysteries" of Charles Dickens. Wilson even insists that Dickens is the most mysterious of the major writers. Well, I don't know about that, but Wilson is often certain of himself. Annoyingly so. That said, I don't dismiss......more