Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #18762 in Books
• Published on: 2002-03-07
• Binding: Paperback
• 624 pages

P D James
'This is an absolutely essential book for anyone who has ever loved or read Dickens'

The Times
`A breathtaking feat of scholarship'

Sheridan Morley
`Truly magnificent…a book that ranks alongside Richard Ellmann's Oscar Wilde. This is the complete, the nonesuch, the definitive Dickens'

Customer Reviews

Brings Dickens utterly to life
I know that Peter Ackroyd has researchers working for him, so I assume the facts which he offers about Dickens are true. That being so, I greatly admire the way he so brilliantly weaves his material together, creating a picture of a living, breathing man - a genius who was irritating, temperamental, likeable, egocentric, self contradictory and generally almost impossible. Not only this but he puts Dickens in his period: he shows us what public life was like at the time and sketches in many individuals that Dickens knew, lived and worked with. He suggests what Dickens might have been aiming for at various times of his life, and what he might have felt and thought. There is inevitably some guesswork in this but after all, nobody can REALLY know another person, and Ackroyd's portrait, based as it is on research, probably contains more truth than the social front Dickens presented to most of the people who knew him personally. So I do believe this is the nearest we will ever get to understanding him, and highly recommend the book. By the way, this is the abridged version, but it is so illuminating and fascinating that I will now go and investigate the longer version.

Astounding
I am in the perhaps somewhat bizarre position of never having read any novel by Dickens himself, and regardless of that, finding myself utterly captivated by this biography. Is it correct? I wouldn't know as I've never read other Dickens-biographies. Is it complete and exhaustive? Probably not, no biography can be. All I do know is that it's truly magnificently written, and had me completely spellbound for all of its 579 pages (in my edition).

Great.
This is a super read for anyone wishing to know more about the country's greatest novelist. Ackroyd's insight, following his extensive research demonstrates his passion for Dickens which is unmatched.

There exists one negative piece of feedback within the Amazon site re: this book, that is, repsectfully totally incorrect. If, like many of Dickens's novels, you take the time the read and savour rather than trying to finish the book, you'll gain a better persepctive, very much like what Ackroyd has achieved in providing this must read biography.