As readers of this blog probably know, Charles Dickens is my favorite author. His writing is certainly flawed in many ways, but his novels are consistently entertaining, and they reward repeat readings. Back in 2002, Penguin publishers commissioned the American novelist Jane Smiley to write a biography of Dickens for its Penguin Lives series. I recently picked up a copy, and it is very good.

Smiley does not go into great detail in regards to Dickens personal life, instead describing significant milestones in it while referring to contemporaneous novels of his. I like this approach very much, as it gives me a greater appreciation of how his personal situations were reflected in his writing. As Smiley explains,

Biographies of Dickens, long and short, abound. A lifelong friend of his, John Forster, published the first authoritative one shortly after Dickens died. The most recent, by Peter Ackroyd, published in 1990, is more than a thousand pages long. It is, therefore, not the intention of this volume to lay out chronologically everything that we have come to know of Charles Dickens’s life as a result of some 130 years of industrious digging on the part of aficionados and scholars from all parts of the world (though admittedly mostly from England). The Charles Dickens we know is decidedly different from the man his contemporaries knew.

… In addition, I will offer interpretations of almost all of Dickens’s major works. One of the most interesting things about Charles Dickens is the way in which his style and his interest in social themes remained remarkably consistent throughout his career, while his vision shifted and evolved.

Thus, this relatively brief (207 pages) and readable biography is an excellent companion to someone who loves Dickens and would like to know the context in which he wrote his works. 

To continue reading my review, click here.