Helena Kelly, author of the acclaimed Jane Austen, the Secret Radical, retells Dickens’ story from his childhood to his deathbed, uncovering the truths he tried to keep hidden, and offering a fresh – and deeply troubling – perspective on the man who remains one of Britain’s best-known novelists. There’s the sister whose existence Dickens kept secret and the Jewish relations whose faith he strove to conceal. There’s plagiarism, fraud, and suicide. And that’s only for starters. You won’t be able to look at him – or his work – in the same way again.
Chaired by Sheilagh Matheson
Tickets £10.50/£8.50
“No doubt there are more “secrets” or events in Dickens’s life to be discovered, and literary detectives will continue the business of seeking them out. Helena Kelly, in her thoroughly researched and readable book, takes such sleuthing to extremes.” – The TLS
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