Becoming Dickens by Robert Douglas-Fairhurst (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2011).
Rather than write a conventional biography, Douglas-Fairhurst focuses on Dickens's early years, up through 1838 and the beginning of Nicholas Nickleby, in order to explore the making of him as a man and an artist. Through Dickens's works, he traces the various forces -- his culture, his family, his education, and so forth -- that shaped his life and his voice. It's an interesting approach and works pretty well on the whole, though sometimes it leads the author to give far too much weight to trifling details. Thus, from a passing reference to a mouse that drowned in ink in Dickens's essay "Our School," we get this: ". . . The detail about drowning in black ink carried far more troubling associations. The mouse that might have achieved greater things was like a small dark shadow of the boy who might have achieved far less if his life had taken a different turn."
. . . Really? I'm all in favor of an approach that helps us remember not to take Dickens for granted, but too much of this sort of thing starts to look like pure melodrama.
But when he's not straining too hard for effects like this, Douglas-Fairhurst provides a lively and readable account of Dickens's development. In particular, his emphasis on the work (as opposed to spending the bulk of the time on the life) is the kind of thing I happen to enjoy in a biography, so I can recommend this one.
(Review copy obtained from the publisher.)
Tomorrow: A Child's Journey with Dickens by Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin.
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