Charles Dickens: A Life Defined by Writing

There is no shortage of doorstop biographies of Charles Dickens (1812–1870). This latest one by Slater, a Dickens scholar and professor emeritus at the University of London, bears an easy, fluid familiarity with the subject at hand. Scholars will appreciate the ingenuity with which the art was chosen. Above all, as the subtitle indicates, this work showcases the contours of Dickens's crammed life with the focus on his writings. And for these reasons, this biography will have primarily an academic appeal. But Slater superbly showcases Dickens's fascination with London life as it developed during his early teenage years; how the stage beckoned a man who was temperamentally a great parodist; why social issues and a refusal to kowtow to authority came to dominate the author's aesthetic families. But it was his startling affair with young actress Ellen (Nelly) Lawless Ternan, a story concealed until the 1930s, which defined Dickens's later life as much as his punishing reading tours did. Overall, this best known of English authors after Shakespeare gains a scholarly, levelheaded and even affecting new illumination of his writing life. 16 pages of color illus., 60 b&w illus. (Nov. 10)