The Mystery of Charles Dickens

Winner, Plutarch Award for Best Biography: A “marvelous exploration” of Dickens’s life and how it shaped his extraordinarily popular novels ( Kirkus Reviews , starred review). An exceedingly rare talent and great orator, slight of build with a frenzied, hyper-energetic personality, Charles Dickens looked much older than his fifty-eight years when he died—an occasion marked by a crowded funeral at Westminster Abbey, despite his waking wishes for a small affair. Experiencing the worst and best of