Claire Tomalin

Charles Dickens was a phenomenon: a demonically hard-working journalist, the father of ten 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.

Claire Tomalin, winner of Whitbread Book of the Year for Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, paints an unforgettable portrait of Dickens, capturing brilliantly the complex character of this great genius. Charles Dickens: A Life is the examination of Dickens we deserve.