The Life of Charles Dickens

John Forster, a journalist, biographer and drama critic, first met Charles Dickens in May 1837 and quickly became a trusted friend and adviser. ‘There was nothing written by [Dickens] which I did not see before the world did, either in manuscript or proofs’, he wrote. When Dickens died in 1870 he had already commissioned Forster to write his biography since ‘you know me better than any other man does, or ever will’.

The book, with its account of Dickens’ impoverished childhood, including time spent by the ‘poor little drudge’ in a blacking factory while his father was in prison for debt, experiences on which Dickens drew for several of his 20 novels, short stories, plays and journalism, came as a revelation to his huge Victorian fan base. Published in three volumes, the Life drew mainly praise for its ‘tender’ portrayal of the great writer, a biography redolent with ‘fun and pathos … that brings [Dickens] dear presence back to us with intense vividness’, wrote his US publisher. However, some were less enthusiastic. Rather than a life of Dickens, the book was ‘the autobiography of John Forster with recollections of Charles Dickens’, one reviewer complained.

Nearly a century and a half later the almost contemporary view of Charles Dickens and his precise location in Victorian London retains its fascination and has now been published in a large format, single volume, abridged illustrated edition, edited by Holly Furneaux with a foreword by the novelist Jane Smiley. With extracts from the novels and comments from Dickens’ contemporaries and later scholars, it is a veritable feast of Dickensania for all.