Christopher Hibbert (1924–2008)

34. [144758::Florence: The Biography of a City] by [[Christopher Hibbert]]
OPD: 1993
format: illustrated 383-page paperback
acquired: 2000 (in Florence?) read: May 22-29 time reading: 18:45, 3.0 mpp
rating: 3
genre/style: popular history theme: Italy
about the author: 1924-2008, English popular historian and WWII veteran, born in Enderby, Leicestershire.

So, we bought this Florence, on our honeymoon. 22.5 years later I finally have read it (shortly before we return). It's... ok. Very 1990's in style and mindset. A little tough to read, a little fact heavy and dry. The notes are designed to help guide you through places, but this book is physically gigantic and really impractical to carry around for that. So, the notes are merely hard to read. But the book captures a bit of everything and the history here is fascinating. The book has its moments. It was the right book for me. Struggling to get caught up in any book, I was able to press on through this and even look forward to getting back to it when I set it down.

2023
https://www.librarything.com/topic/348551#8155374… (more)

This is a well researched analysis of the first 30 or so years of Dickens's life, tracing the links between the early events in his life and his developing literary approach. Much of this is material I have seen covered in other books, but Hibbert shows how repeated patterns come up, such as strong brother-sister relationships being seen as more ideal than husband-wife ones, reflecting in particular his close and, to modern eyes, bizarre, relationship with his sister in law Mary Hogarth who died so suddenly and so tragically young; and the repeated ripples of assertions of self confidence in later life reflecting the knock back Dickens suffered after his initial schooling in Chatham when he had to work in the infamous blacking warehouse on the site of what is now Charing Cross station. Much of Dickens's life and attitudes towards his own progress and relations with others seems to demonstrate an absolute imperative to avoid the feckless attitudes and precarious economic situation of his father John Dickens whom he had continually to bale out for the reminder of the latter's life. This is fascinating stuff though I did think Hibbert perhaps went slightly too far into Dickens's middle life to suit the title.… (more)