Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens

By Robert Gottlieb and Robert Gottlieb

Book Overview

The strange and varied lives of the ten children of the world's most beloved novelist Charles Dickens, famous for the indelible child characters he created--from Little Nell to Oliver Twist and David Copperfield--was also the father of ten children (and a possible eleventh). What happened to those children is the fascinating subject of Robert Gottlieb's Great Expectations . With sympathy and understanding he narrates the highly various and surprising stories of each of Dickens's sons and daughters, from Kate, who became a successful artist, to Frank, who died in Moline, Illinois, after serving a grim stretch in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Each of these lives is fascinating on its own. Together they comprise a unique window on Victorian England as well as a moving and disturbing study of Dickens as a father and as a man.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374298807
• ISBN13: 9780374298807
• Release Date: November 2012
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 239 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.9" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

Always lived Dickens.

For lovers of Dickens. Interesting details about his children and how he doted on them. For a very successful man, I guess his children couldn't live up to his success. Sad about some of his children.