Rating: 
Summary: Unreliable and verbose
Review: . . . but no adjective, or string of adjectives, can do Ackroyd's massive, majestic biography justice. Dickens is, with Victoria, the archetypical Victorian, and he is here fully realized, in all his contradictory dimensions: the best-known and best-loved writer of his day, but perpetually insecure and ashamed of his "ungentlemanly" background; wealthy yet financially ever insecure and working feverishly for material advancement; outgoing and flamboyantly dramatic, yet profoundly interior and haunted by irrepressible demons; the great celebrator of hearth and home who sired 10 children but who abandoned his wife of 22 years for a curious relationship with an actress more than half his age; the man who toasted Shakespeare's birthday as the anniversary also of the Bard's gallery of immortal characters, who saw himself as a similar progenitor but who would "write" his friends, compulsively objectifying them, family, and acquaintances into manipulable, construed, understandable "characters" - indeed, the most capacious literary imagination since Shakespeare but a jittery control addict for whom everything, and everybody, had to be in its right place. Ackroyd has read every word Dickens wrote - the novels, stories, journalism, letters, inscriptions - and apparently, and more astonishingly, everything ever written ABOUT Dickens - by his circle of literary and profession friends, rivals, reviewers and critics, acquaintances, memoirists who encountered him but once, otherwise unknown British, Scottish, Continental, or American diarists who happened to note a Dickens "sighting" whether or not words were exchanged. All these gleanings Ackroyd shapes convincingly into cumulative aspects of character, incidents that inform Dickens's work, information about the author's public bearing, mannerisms, speech, likes, dislikes, behavior in almost every imaginable range of situations - "in short" - to call on Micawber - a full portrait. And with remarkable efficiency and literary felicity, Ackroyd situates Dickens within his rapidly changing era, as long-distance horse-drawn coaches give way to rail travel, as the stench and filth of pre-Reform London yields to reformist impulses of every stripe, as the Empire advances and London is transformed into a great capital of monuments and squares and Imperial architecture. (And, as with his engrossing biography of Thomas More, Ackroyd introduces London as a major character and influence on his subject, a conceit Ackroyd, himself the author of a knowing, loving "biography" of London, pulls off beautifully.) Most important for devotees of Charles Dickens - and if you're searching for a 1200 page (scandalously) out-of-print biography, you are surely that - Ackroyd demonstrates convincingly how the work reflects the life, the personality, the influences, the environment, and all the contradictions of Dickens the man. Ackroyd carefully walks the line between reading too much into the life from the work, but draws careful correspondences between the tensions of the life and their realizations in fiction. The chapters devoted to Dickens in the throes, or ecstasies, of creation - for so does his creative moods and energies vary - are among the book's most compelling passages. Scarcely ever has the sinews of literary creativity been laid so believably bare, by a biographer who is himself a prolific, and highly imaginative, writer. The most powerful impression one draws from Ackroyd's matchless story is the extent to which a protean Dickens embodied to a great degree all his mightiest creations, the dark and the bright, and not merely the plainly autobiographical Nickeby, Pip, and David Copperfield. When I finally closed Ackroyd's Dickens, I was nearly inconsolable at the loss of someone I felt I had come to know so well. A brilliant life, radiantly told, and a book that deserves to be - and, I pray, will soon be - back in print.
Rating: 
Summary: Stupendous . . .
Review: . . . but no adjective, or string of adjectives, can do Ackroyd's massive, majestic biography justice. Dickens is, with Victoria, the archetypical Victorian, and he is here fully realized, in all his contradictory dimensions: the best-known and best-loved writer of his day, but perpetually insecure and ashamed of his "ungentlemanly" background; wealthy yet financially ever insecure and working feverishly for material advancement; outgoing and flamboyantly dramatic, yet profoundly interior and haunted by irrepressible demons; the great celebrator of hearth and home who sired 10 children but who abandoned his wife of 22 years for a curious relationship with an actress more than half his age; the man who toasted Shakespeare's birthday as the anniversary also of the Bard's gallery of immortal characters, who saw himself as a similar progenitor but who would "write" his friends, compulsively objectifying them, family, and acquaintances into manipulable, construed, understandable "characters" - indeed, the most capacious literary imagination since Shakespeare but a jittery control addict for whom everything, and everybody, had to be in its right place. Ackroyd has read every word Dickens wrote - the novels, stories, journalism, letters, inscriptions - and apparently, and more astonishingly, everything ever written ABOUT Dickens - by his circle of literary and profession friends, rivals, reviewers and critics, acquaintances, memoirists who encountered him but once, otherwise unknown British, Scottish, Continental, or American diarists who happened to note a Dickens "sighting" whether or not words were exchanged. All these gleanings Ackroyd shapes convincingly into cumulative aspects of character, incidents that inform Dickens's work, information about the author's public bearing, mannerisms, speech, likes, dislikes, behavior in almost every imaginable range of situations - "in short" - to call on Micawber - a full portrait. And with remarkable efficiency and literary felicity, Ackroyd situates Dickens within his rapidly changing era, as long-distance horse-drawn coaches give way to rail travel, as the stench and filth of pre-Reform London yields to reformist impulses of every stripe, as the Empire advances and London is transformed into a great capital of monuments and squares and Imperial architecture. (And, as with his engrossing biography of Thomas More, Ackroyd introduces London as a major character and influence on his subject, a conceit Ackroyd, himself the author of a knowing, loving "biography" of London, pulls off beautifully.) Most important for devotees of Charles Dickens - and if you're searching for a 1200 page (scandalously) out-of-print biography, you are surely that - Ackroyd demonstrates convincingly how the work reflects the life, the personality, the influences, the environment, and all the contradictions of Dickens the man. Ackroyd carefully walks the line between reading too much into the life from the work, but draws careful correspondences between the tensions of the life and their realizations in fiction. The chapters devoted to Dickens in the throes, or ecstasies, of creation - for so does his creative moods and energies vary - are among the book's most compelling passages. Scarcely ever has the sinews of literary creativity been laid so believably bare, by a biographer who is himself a prolific, and highly imaginative, writer. The most powerful impression one draws from Ackroyd's matchless story is the extent to which a protean Dickens embodied to a great degree all his mightiest creations, the dark and the bright, and not merely the plainly autobiographical Nickeby, Pip, and David Copperfield. When I finally closed Ackroyd's Dickens, I was nearly inconsolable at the loss of someone I felt I had come to know so well. A brilliant life, radiantly told, and a book that deserves to be - and, I pray, will soon be - back in print.
Rating:
Summary: A Mandarin paperback is available
Review: Ackroyd does it again -- another breathtaking biography. Even though the the Harpercollins version is out of print, I just bought a nearly 600 page "abridged" (would you believe) Mandarin "Pocket Edition" which is magnificent
Rating:
Summary: What could he be thinking of?
Review: Although I find this book slightly more interesting than did the reviewer who likened it to Sominex, I have to confess that I am trying to finish it out of obstinacy and of my interest in Dicken's life. Ackroyd's writing style does indeed get on my nerves, particularly his effusions about Dickens' genius. Maybe he was a genius, but we don't have to be reminded 40 times a chapter! What bothered me the most were the chapters inserted here and there that were Ackroyd's fictional accounts of Dickens meeting his characters or other writers who did not live in his time. I found them corny and unbearable. I have never seen anything like this in other biographies, and I think that's a good thing. The only reason I am giving this book 2 stars is that it reflects an incredible amount of scholarship. But I have no idea why it is so well-regarded.
Rating:
Summary: Unreliable and verbose
Review: As someone with a history degree, I find this biography infuriating. The author uses the phrase "no doubt" to launch almost every other sentence. Every use indicates a speculation rather than a fact; or at least something for which the author provides zero evidence. Usually it is lengthy speculation on Dickens' emotions (including during infancy), but sometimes his actions; and sometimes the feelings and actions of his family, friends, and colleagues. Thus the author blithely--and firmly--attributes a miscarriage of Dickens' wife, after the sudden death of her teenage sister Mary Hogarth, to jealousy over Dickens' show of grief. He insists Dickens' feelings for Mary were purely fatherly. But he gives no evidence other than Dickens' own public declarations, and Dickens is unlikely to have been candid about adulterous longings for a virginal female relative. On the other hand, I myself would speculate that Catherine Dickens may herself have grieved over her sister's death. But the author gives absolutely no evidence for how she felt about the death or Dickens' grief--no letters, no conversations reported by friends, nothing. On yet another hand, I would speculate that the miscarriage may have been due to purely physical rather than emotional causes, and its occurence after a family tragedy a coincidence--but the author does not discuss this possibility either. And this is one of many, many instances. I also got tired of hearing the author assert often and at length that society was different in the mid 19th century than now, which is obvious. The author is much too fond of showing off his own prose. He even includes lengthy, boring, and uninformative fictional vignettes using Dickens as a character. Overall, I'd say that the author is unable to distinguish among literary criticism, fiction using a historical character, and biography. He should have stuck to one of the first two genres and not attempted the third.
Rating:
Summary: Unreliable and verbose
Review: As someone with a history degree, I find this biography infuriating. The author uses the phrase "no doubt" to launch almost every other sentence. Every use indicates a speculation rather than a fact; or at least something for which the author provides zero evidence. Usually it is lengthy speculation on Dickens' emotions (including during infancy), but sometimes his actions; and sometimes the feelings and actions of his family, friends, and colleagues. Thus the author blithely--and firmly--attributes a miscarriage of Dickens' wife, after the sudden death of her teenage sister Mary Hogarth, to jealousy over Dickens' show of grief. He insists Dickens' feelings for Mary were purely fatherly. But he gives no evidence other than Dickens' own public declarations, and Dickens is unlikely to have been candid about adulterous longings for a virginal female relative. On the other hand, I myself would speculate that Catherine Dickens may herself have grieved over her sister's death. But the author gives absolutely no evidence for how she felt about the death or Dickens' grief--no letters, no conversations reported by friends, nothing. On yet another hand, I would speculate that the miscarriage may have been due to purely physical rather than emotional causes, and its occurence after a family tragedy a coincidence--but the author does not discuss this possibility either. And this is one of many, many instances. I also got tired of hearing the author assert often and at length that society was different in the mid 19th century than now, which is obvious. The author is much too fond of showing off his own prose. He even includes lengthy, boring, and uninformative fictional vignettes using Dickens as a character. Overall, I'd say that the author is unable to distinguish among literary criticism, fiction using a historical character, and biography. He should have stuck to one of the first two genres and not attempted the third.
Rating:
Summary: Detailed, readable, compelling biography of Dickens
Review: How can facts be made to live? Through the art of the story-teller. When that writer is a great novelist; when that biographer respects and knows his subject intimately, then you have the recipe for a great biography. Ackroyd's book, lengthy as it is, goes beyond that. Interspersed with some "fantasy fiction" in larger font, the straight narrative story of Dickens rise from blacking factory to the century's pre-emminent english writer is compelling. Truly one of the great biographies of modern times. I was lucky enough to find a signed copy of the book as well. I will both treasure it and refer to it often. A masterpiece of research and committment to a subject.
Rating:
Summary: Peter Ackroyd does it again! Dickens is magnificent
Review: I have become an Ackroyd fan in a mere two books (the other was The House of Dr. Dee). What a fascinating and magnificent way Ackroyd has of describing real human lives! Dickens walks, sings, remembers, cries, writes, through this book. He is alive as an actor, clown, jokester, gamester, humanitarian and (unfortunately) self centered egoistic mirror-crazy eccentric philander in loud clothes. As I read Ackroyd's biography I simultaneously love and hate Dickens; yet I also come to understand how Dickens' own life (especially his childhood) is written into his books. Amazing
Rating: 
Summary: Better than Sominex
Review: I have been struggling with book for 2 weeks now, and I'm afraid I haven't made it past page 250. At this rate I fear I shall never finish it. I can't seem to stay awake. Oh, it's not the subject - one of the most interesting persons in all of literature - but the writer. With all due respect to those who find this book so readable, I'm afraid my definition of that word must differ greatly from yours. With all the curlicues and furbelows, asides and digressions, not to mention a writing style that owes more to Bulwer-Lytton than to Dickens, I find myself wanting to yell "get to the point, man!" Here is a typical passage: "Even in the somewhat restricted surroundings of Hawk Street the sea had been only a few hundred yards away; but here they were beside the thoroughfares of Oxford Street and Tottenham Street, that somewhat blighted area where a few years before the forsaken boy, Thomas De Quincey, had met the friendless girl and together they had trudged weary and fainting. De Quincey had memorialised this episode in his "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" published in 1822 : "when I walk at this time in Oxford-street by dreamy lamplight, and hear those airs played on a barrel organ which years ago solaced me and my dear companion (as I must always call her) I shed tears . . ." Dickens was later to shed tears when he paced some other London streets and, although it would be too much to say that the small child was aware of the miseries which existed close to him, it would be a foolish person indeed who did not believe that the strange mysteries and sorrows of London did not in some way move or pierce his infant breast." This tortured prose was written not in 1890 but in 1990, and I suspect it's the major reason the book is no longer in print. It dawned on me as I have been slogging through this tome that the man writes like Wilkins Micawber speaks. In short, Ackroyd was in desparate need of an editor to rein in his excesses. Had he (and we) been so fortunate, the book probably would have weighed in at far fewer than its 1086 pages (not including notes). It also would not have been such a good cure for insomnia. This book has, so far, disappointed me immensely. I had wanted a biography of Dickens with a more modern perspective than the venerable volumes penned by Edgar Johnson. Such a book may be hidden in this one, but it may not be possible to find it beneath all of the layers of pretentious prose.
Rating:
Summary: Better than Sominex
Review: I have been struggling with book for 2 weeks now, and I'm afraid I haven't made it past page 250. At this rate I fear I shall never finish it. I can't seem to stay awake. Oh, it's not the subject - one of the most interesting persons in all of literature - but the writer. With all due respect to those who find this book so readable, I'm afraid my definition of that word must differ greatly from yours. With all the curlicues and furbelows, asides and digressions, not to mention a writing style that owes more to Bulwer-Lytton than to Dickens, I find myself wanting to yell "get to the point, man!" Here is a typical passage: "Even in the somewhat restricted surroundings of Hawk Street the sea had been only a few hundred yards away; but here they were beside the thoroughfares of Oxford Street and Tottenham Street, that somewhat blighted area where a few years before the forsaken boy, Thomas De Quincey, had met the friendless girl and together they had trudged weary and fainting. De Quincey had memorialised this episode in his "Confessions of an English Opium Eater" published in 1822 : "when I walk at this time in Oxford-street by dreamy lamplight, and hear those airs played on a barrel organ which years ago solaced me and my dear companion (as I must always call her) I shed tears . . ." Dickens was later to shed tears when he paced some other London streets and, although it would be too much to say that the small child was aware of the miseries which existed close to him, it would be a foolish person indeed who did not believe that the strange mysteries and sorrows of London did not in some way move or pierce his infant breast." This tortured prose was written not in 1890 but in 1990, and I suspect it's the major reason the book is no longer in print. It dawned on me as I have been slogging through this tome that the man writes like Wilkins Micawber speaks. In short, Ackroyd was in desparate need of an editor to rein in his excesses. Had he (and we) been so fortunate, the book probably would have weighed in at far fewer than its 1086 pages (not including notes). It also would not have been such a good cure for insomnia. This book has, so far, disappointed me immensely. I had wanted a biography of Dickens with a more modern perspective than the venerable volumes penned by Edgar Johnson. Such a book may be hidden in this one, but it may not be possible to find it beneath all of the layers of pretentious prose.
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