Research Catalog

Title

The invisible woman : the story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens / Claire Tomalin.

Author

Tomalin, Claire

Publication

New York : Vintage Books, 2012, c1991

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

xvi, 333 p., [24] p. of plates : ill.; 21 cm.

Summary

Now a major motion picture directed by Ralph Fiennes, co-starring Fiennes and Felicity Jones with Michelle Fairley, Kristin Scott Thomas, and Tom Hollander: the unforgettable story of Charles Dickens's mistress Nelly Ternan, and of the secret relationship that linked them. When Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan met in 1857, she was 18: a professional actress performing in his production of The Frozen Deep. He was 45: a literary legend, a national treasure, married with ten children. This meeting sparked a love affair that lasted over a decade, destroying Dickens's marriage and ending with Nelly's near-disappearance from the public record. In this remarkable work of biography, Claire Tomalin rescues Nelly from obscurity, not only returning the neglected actress to her rightful place in history, but also giving us a compelling and truthful account of the great Victorian novelist. Through Dickens's diaries, correspondence, address books, and photographs, Tomalin is able to reconstruct the relationship between Charles and Nelly, bringing it to vivid life. The result is a riveting literary detective story - and a portrait of a singular woman.

Subject

• Dickens, Charles, 1812-1870 > Relations with women
• Ternan, Ellen Lawless, 1839-1914 > Relations with men
• 1800-1899
• Novelists, English > 19th century > Biography
• Mistresses > Great Britain > Biography
• Actors > Great Britain > Biography

Genre/Form

Biographies

Note

• First published, in somewhat different form, in the United States: New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1991.

Bibliography (note)

• Includes bibliographical references and index.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

'N' -- 'Agreeable and beautiful talents' -- Family saga (1790-1845) -- Little orphans (1845-1855) -- Gaslight fairies (1856-1857) -- The amateur : Dickens in 1857 -- Manchester, Doncaster, and scandal (1857-1858) -- Mornington Crescent (1858-1862) -- Vanishing into space (1862-1865) -- Fanny and Maria get married (1863-1866) -- The year of the diary (1867) -- `This life is half made up of partings' (1868-1870) -- Another life begins (1870-1876) -- The schoolmaster's wife and the foreign correspondent : Margate, Rome, Africa -- Nelly tells -- Southsea -- Geoffrey -- Myths and morals -- The death of Dickens.

ISBN

• 9780345803979
• 0345803973

OCLC

• 816075445
• SCSB-12835804

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library