Claire Tomalin

Claire Tomalin discusses Charles Dickens: A Life.; John Bowen discusses Other Dickens: Pickwick to Chuzzlewit .

Charles Dickens was a phenomenon: a demonically hardworking journalist, the father of 10 children, a tireless walker and traveller, a supporter of liberal social causes, but most of all a great novelist - the creator of characters who live immortally in the English imagination: the Artful Dodger, Mr Pickwick, Pip, David Copperfield, Little Nell, Lady Dedlock, and many more. At the age of 12 he was sent to work in a blacking factory by his affectionate but feckless parents. From these unpromising beginnings, he rose to scale all the social and literary heights, entirely through his own efforts. When he died, the world mourned, and he was buried - against his wishes – in Westminster Abbey. Yet the brilliance concealed a divided character: a republican, he disliked America; sentimental about the family in his writings, he took up passionately with a young actress; usually generous, he cut off his impecunious children. One of our finest biographers, Claire Tomalin has painted and unforgettable portrait of Dickens in her new book. At this event she talks to leading scholar John Bowen about the complex character of this great genius. (souloftherose)… (more)