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Charles Dickens
- A Life
- Narrated by: Alex Jennings
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
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Publisher's summary
When Charles Dickens died in 1870, The Times of London successfully campaigned for his burial in Westminster Abbey, the final resting place of England's kings and heroes. Thousands flocked to mourn the best recognized and loved man of 19th-century England. His books had made them laugh, shown them the squalor and greed of English life, and also the power of personal virtue and the strength of ordinary people. In his last years Dickens drew adoring crowds to his public appearances, had met presidents and princes, and had amassed a fortune.
Like a hero from his novels, Dickens trod a hard path to greatness. Born into a modest middle-class family, his young life was overturned when his profligate father was sent to debtors' prison and Dickens was forced into harsh and humiliating factory work. Yet through these early setbacks he developed his remarkable eye for all that was absurd, tragic, and redemptive in London life. He set out to succeed, and with extraordinary speed and energy made himself into the greatest English novelist of the century.
Years later Dickens's daughter wrote to the author George Bernard Shaw, "If you could make the public understand that my father was not a joyous, jocose gentleman walking about the world with a plum pudding and a bowl of punch, you would greatly oblige me." Seen as the public champion of household harmony, Dickens tore his own life apart, betraying, deceiving, and breaking with friends and family while he pursued an obsessive love affair.
Charles Dickens: A Life gives full measure to Dickens's heroic stature - his huge virtues both as a writer and as a human being - while observing his failings in both respects with an unblinking eye. Renowned literary biographer Claire Tomalin crafts a story worthy of Dickens's own pen, a comedy that turns to tragedy as the very qualities that made him great - his indomitable energy, boldness, imagination, and showmanship - finally destroyed him. The man who emerges is one of extraordinary contradictions, whose vices and virtues were intertwined as surely as his life and his art.
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What listeners say about Charles Dickens
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- C. Randall Curb
- 11-04-13
A great biography brilliantly read
What made the experience of listening to Charles Dickens the most enjoyable?
Claire Tomalin is one of the finest biographers working today. This is the fourth biography by her that I have read, and I have found only one--her book on Katherine Mansfield--less than superb. The complaints that the novels are not summarized or analysed in detail are absurd. Who goes to a genuine literary biography for plot synopses? The quibbling remarks about syntax are laughable. Tomalin is an extremely lucid and careful writer. The so-called slips are not based on current grammatical rules (and I taught English for years). I loved listening to this book as I am no longer able to read the print in most books. I do own this biography however and could at least follow along, mark my place, and look at the illustrations. I found the reading impeccable.
What other book might you compare Charles Dickens to and why?
The book can be compared only to other great literary biographies, such as Claire Tomalin's book on Thomas Hardy and the biographies of Michael Holroyd.
What about Alex Jennings’s performance did you like?
Alex Jennings, a great actor, is represented by many titles in the Audible catalogue. There is a good reason for this--he has a pleasing, resonant voice that the listener never tires of. It is a strong, sympathetic, manly, British voice that is perfect for reading a book about Dickens. I will seek out other recordings that Jenning has made.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
Heavens no. I spent two weeks on this book. Though not overlong, it is packed with information and insight, especially into Dickens's marriage and his friendships. I have read a great deal about Dickens, but I learned much more from taking my time in reading this volume.
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20 people found this helpful
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- Tad Davis
- 02-07-16
Burning the candle at both ends
Claire Tomalin has done a beautiful job writing the life of this brilliant and troubled man; and Alex Jennings has done an equally beautiful job performing it. ("Performing" is the appropriate term, as it is for most audiobooks; but particularly so here, with its variety of voices - some of them belonging to real people, some to characters created by Dickens.)
In some ways it's an Horatio Alger tale: Dickens didn't start out in a workhouse, like Oliver Twist, but his family came dangerously close in the early years. He worked frenetically and tirelessly all his life. But the tale of success is (for me) marred by the way he treated his wife: for years seeming to blame her for her repeated pregnancies, as if he had nothing to do with it; lamenting her increasing fragility, narrowed horizons, and haggard looks - again, as if he had nothing to do with it; and finally leaving her for a young actress, Nelly Ternan.
His attempts at self-justification led him sometimes into cruelty. After their separation, he told others that his wife Catherine had never really loved their children; and they were, he said, just as eager to be shut of her. But it was Dickens himself who failed to love and appreciate his children: they usually disappointed him, and he made sure they knew it.
People often accuse him of sentimentality - an accusation that's not easy to refute, because it's true. But it was interesting to hear that Dickens himself sometimes chafed under the restrictions of Victorian public morality. He yearned for the continental freedom to depict life as it was actually lived. Like Jules Verne, he was straitjacketed by the expectations of the public.
He put his money where his mouth was, donating generous amounts of time and money to charitable organizations. He helped found and for years supported a home for prostitutes who were trying to break out of their trade, to get a second chance, to go somewhere new. And unlike most such establishments, there were no religious litmus tests to be applied before help was offered.
He took prodigious amounts of exercise, rising early and roaming through London and the surrounding countryside for miles at a time. He died young - he was only 58 - but his heart had begun failing a couple of years earlier. He kept pushing himself on the lecture circuit, reading and acting out some of the scenes from his books with such fervor that it would sometimes take him days to recover. He did, in fact, have a minor stroke on one of his reading tours, but he plowed forward to the bitter end.
If you've ever enjoyed Dickens, this is a good way to get closer to the man himself. Tomalin neither vilifies nor worships him. She presents him whole.
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18 people found this helpful
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- Susan
- 11-17-12
erudite and well researched
thought this was an excellent overview of Dickens life. It really gave me a feel for the streets and milieu of his particular period of life. I enjoyed it especially when Ms. Tomalin reviewed his various novels and showed what was going on in his life at the same time. I had a glimpse of Dickens as a flawed, amazing man.
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12 people found this helpful
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- KathrynVB
- 10-16-14
Very comprehensive book about Charles Dickens
This book is a phenomenal accomplishment of research and compilation. I cannot imagine that anything important about Charles Dickens' life remains unsaid. There is almost too much detail here, but one finishes this book with a very good understanding of the author, the place of each book in his life, and the dynamics of his authorship. You may be surprised that some of his best books are given short shrift, but then, this is about Dickens and not just his books. Very interesting read!
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3 people found this helpful
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- Mark
- 01-21-22
What The Dickens?
The author seemed to have forgotten the use of adverbs replacing them with adjectives. Many details about Dickens, his characters, locations in London & England, his novel’s story lines & his friends or acquaintances. As an Audible book I often forgot who a person or character was when talked about later in the book. There was no way to look back and rediscover the person or character. If you have not read all of Dickens’ works, the author’s details of each can be tedious to listen to. Mostly my impression was a this is bleak tale.
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- Ruby Luna
- 01-21-17
Superb Biography. Narration Excellent
My next read will be another Claire Tomalin.
Throughout my life I often wonder why the lives of 50 percent of our population are given so little attention. Tomalin sets the way. Women are not backdrop characters.
I listened to this biography and Great Expectations simultaneously. Still consider Dickens use of language both unique and compelling.
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- G. M. Stratton
- 10-28-22
One Of The Greats
Having read many of Dickens books in High School and College, I really enjoyed going behind the curtain and learning about his life while gaining new insights about his works. Claire Tomalin is such a good writer. I hated to see this one end. And I would be remiss not to mention the narration by Alex Jennings is outstanding.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Robert
- 10-03-21
Excellently written gripping biography of Dickens
What a wonderful Biography of the greatest storyteller and character creator in all of Literature.Claire Tomalin was right there alongside Dickens and all his family, friends and characters....in fact it was as if Claire Tomalin was Dickens recording his own life.
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-30-23
Such a worthwhile read.
I learned a lot from this biography. So much material to get through but this book is perfectly researched and beautifully presented. Performance was exceptional.
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- LoveFromBothSides
- 05-13-23
Geniuses, don’t make good partners…
Geniuses don’t make good parents, usually. This wonderful biography shows the day today workings of an obsessed personality. If you listen to: stealing fire… That’s the kind of brain that Charles dickens was gifted with. And the fact that he knew how fired up his own brain was, and what it needed to calm down… Walking 12 miles a day, makes this biography, very much worth reading/listening to. His need for love and admiration made him the workhorse that he was. His sense of entitlement, and his ignoring of the middle class, morality, and hypocrisy that he saw all around him… Allowed him to pursue passionate friendships… If you were to relate him to a DSM diagnostic evaluation, head cold out as a narcissist. But all artists are complete narcissists. as his daughter said of him after he died: he wasn’t a good man, but he was wonderful! And he had a large beating heart that changed the way English people saw their own society… With all its prejudice, privilege, and pathology. This biography is very well done!
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Story
Deeply distressed at thought of his singularly money-minded family circling around his inevitable death bed, when Old Martin Chuzzlewit comes across a young and kindly orphan girl, he immediately decides to take her into his employment. Offering her a comfortable living in exchange for her care and protection, Martin rests easy in the knowledge that her comfort will last only as long as he does; upon his death, Mary the orphan will find herself on the cold and dirty streets from whence she came.
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Least enjoyable Dickens' books I've ever read or listened to.
- By Brain on 12-06-18
By: Charles Dickens, and others
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The Invisible Woman
- The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens
- By: Claire Tomalin
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan met in 1857; she was 18, a hard-working actress performing in his production of The Frozen Deep, and he was 45, the most lionized writer in England. Out of their meeting came a love affair that lasted 13 years and destroyed Dickens's marriage while effacing Nelly Ternan from the public record.
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Interesting
- By Jean on 01-21-13
By: Claire Tomalin
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Nicholas Nickleby
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 31 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The most gorgeously theatrical of all Dickens's novels, Nicholas Nickleby follows the delightful adventures of a hearty young hero in 19th-century England. Nicholas, a gentleman's son fallen upon hard times, must set out to make his way in the world. His journey is accompanied by some of the most swaggering scoundrels and unforgettable eccentrics in Dickens's pantheon.
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Amazing
- By Terie on 07-12-07
By: Charles Dickens
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The Mystery of Charles Dickens
- By: A. N. Wilson
- Narrated by: Mark Meadows
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Filled with the twists, pathos, and unusual characters that sprang from this novelist’s extraordinary imagination, The Mystery of Charles Dickens looks back from the legendary writer’s death to recall the key events in his life. In doing so, he seeks to understand Dickens’ creative genius and enduring popularity. Following his life from cradle to grave, it becomes clear that Dickens’ fiction drew from his life - a fact he acknowledged.
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One thesis, repeated
- By Marina on 01-31-21
By: A. N. Wilson
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A Life of My Own
- A Memoir
- By: Claire Tomalin
- Narrated by: Penelope Wilton
- Length: 9 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Marked by honesty, humility, and grace, rendered in the most elegant of prose, A Life of My Own is a portrait of a life, replete with joy and heartbreak. With quiet insight and unsparing clarity, Claire Tomalin writes autobiography at its most luminous, delivering an astonishing and emotionally taut masterpiece.
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Flat, name dropping with no insight
- By Mary on 01-01-19
By: Claire Tomalin
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Thomas Hardy
- By: Claire Tomalin
- Narrated by: Josephine Bailey
- Length: 14 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Hardy's work challenged sexual and religious conventions in a way that few other authors of the time dared. Though his modesty and kindness allowed some to underestimate him, or even to pity him, they did not prevent him from taking on the central themes of human experience: time, memory, loss, love, fear, grief, anger, death. This engrossing biography identifies the inner demons and the outer mores that drove Hardy and presents a complex portrait of one of the greatest figures in English literature.
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A Sensitive Portrait
- By peter on 04-10-07
By: Claire Tomalin
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Martin Chuzzlewit
- The Audible Dickens Collection
- By: Charles Dickens, William Boyd - introduction
- Narrated by: Derek Jacobi, William Boyd - introduction
- Length: 41 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Deeply distressed at thought of his singularly money-minded family circling around his inevitable death bed, when Old Martin Chuzzlewit comes across a young and kindly orphan girl, he immediately decides to take her into his employment. Offering her a comfortable living in exchange for her care and protection, Martin rests easy in the knowledge that her comfort will last only as long as he does; upon his death, Mary the orphan will find herself on the cold and dirty streets from whence she came.
-
-
Least enjoyable Dickens' books I've ever read or listened to.
- By Brain on 12-06-18
By: Charles Dickens, and others
-
The Invisible Woman
- The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens
- By: Claire Tomalin
- Narrated by: Wanda McCaddon
- Length: 10 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan met in 1857; she was 18, a hard-working actress performing in his production of The Frozen Deep, and he was 45, the most lionized writer in England. Out of their meeting came a love affair that lasted 13 years and destroyed Dickens's marriage while effacing Nelly Ternan from the public record.
-
-
Interesting
- By Jean on 01-21-13
By: Claire Tomalin
-
Nicholas Nickleby
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Simon Vance
- Length: 31 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The most gorgeously theatrical of all Dickens's novels, Nicholas Nickleby follows the delightful adventures of a hearty young hero in 19th-century England. Nicholas, a gentleman's son fallen upon hard times, must set out to make his way in the world. His journey is accompanied by some of the most swaggering scoundrels and unforgettable eccentrics in Dickens's pantheon.
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Amazing
- By Terie on 07-12-07
By: Charles Dickens
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Jane Austen: A Life from Beginning to End
- Biographies of British Authors, Book 2
- By: Hourly History
- Narrated by: Mike Nelson
- Length: 1 hr and 7 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Jane Austen wrote that in her novels she painted the world on a “little bit (two inches wide) of ivory,” working “with so fine a brush.” Her well-known books, such as Pride and Prejudice and Emma, display the power of this approach; her observations about human nature have proven so accurate and entertaining that her books continue to be beloved 200 years after they were written.
By: Hourly History
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The Mystery of Edwin Drood
- The Audible Dickens Collection
- By: Charles Dickens, Lucinda Hawksley
- Narrated by: Billy Howle, Lucinda Hawksley
- Length: 10 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Audible presents an original production of the aptly named The Mystery of Edwin Drood, Charles Dickens’ final, unfinished novel. Following his untimely death at the age of 58, Dickens managed to publish only six of the 12 planned instalments of the story. Though it has gone on to be one of his more popular titles and the source of inspiration for various television, stage and theatre adaptations, no one knows exactly how Dickens planned to end the mystery.
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Loved this. Now obsessed.
- By Amazon Customer on 05-27-23
By: Charles Dickens, and others
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The Pickwick Papers
- The Audible Dickens Collection
- By: Charles Dickens, Neil Gaiman
- Narrated by: Rory Kinnear, Neil Gaiman
- Length: 32 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
When Samuel Pickwick decides to establish and preside over a travelling society, he unknowingly brings together three of the oddest men in all of London: Tracy Tupman, the loveless self-professed ladies’ man, Augustus Snodgrass, the poet who’s never put pen to paper, and Nathaniel Winkle, the endlessly clumsy sportsman. The ‘Pickwickians’ set off in search of new adventures outside of the confines of the city. Along with a host of other colourful Dickensian characters such as Mr Pickwick’s love-struck landlady, Mrs Bardell, and his trusty sidekick, Sam Weller.
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Done with gusto
- By Tad Davis on 12-26-19
By: Charles Dickens, and others
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Nicholas Nickleby
- By: Charles Dickens
- Narrated by: Alex Jennings
- Length: 34 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
One of Dickens' early works, Nicholas Nickleby combines comedy and tragedy in a tale of triumph over adversity that is interspersed with Dickens' moving condemnation of society's mistreatment of children and the cruelty of the educational system. Young Nickleby struggles to seek his fortune in Victorian England, yet succeeds despite social injustice, in a story that mirrors Dickens' own rise from poverty to great success.
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Wonderful tale, wonderful reader
- By Richard on 06-19-09
By: Charles Dickens
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The Victorian City
- Everyday Life in Dickens' London
- By: Judith Flanders
- Narrated by: Corrie James
- Length: 16 hrs and 5 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Judith Flanders, one of Britain's foremost social historians, explores the world portrayed so vividly in Dickens' novels, showing life on the streets of London in colorful, fascinating detail. From the moment Charles Dickens, the century's best-loved English novelist and London's greatest observer, arrived in the city in 1822, he obsessively walked its streets, recording its pleasures, curiosities, and cruelties.
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UNFORTUNATLY DISAPPOINTED, IS NOT INTERESTING
- By Count B on 02-04-18
By: Judith Flanders