“He was excited by new things and new ways of reaching people.'By far the most humane and imaginatively sympathetic account yet for the general reader' Amanda Craig, New StatesmanĬharles Dickens was a phenomenon- a demonically hardworking journalist, the father of ten children, a tireless walker and traveller, a supporter of liberal social causes, but most of all a great novelist - the creator of characters who live immortally in the English imagination- the Artful Dodger, Mr Pickwick, Pip, David Copperfield, Little Nell, Lady Dedlo. “I think Dickens would have liked this TV version,” said Tomalin. the characters are the reason Dickens was so popular.”ĭickensian is based on a plot that throws several different characters together from the 989 created in his many novels. “David Copperfield takes children seriously – their mentality, their imagination and their feelings. “Dickens has this extraordinary immediacy that children love,” she says. She said she first started to love the famous author aged just 7. Tomalin, now 82, is the winner of several awards including the James Tait Black Memorial prize for her work, which includes biographies of Samuel Pepys and Thomas Hardy as well as The Invisible Woman, which detailed the life of Nelly Ternan, the mistress of Charles Dickens. That’s why driving the plot is very important with Dickens,” says Tomalin. “He wanted people to come back and buy the next issue – and they did. At the peak of his fame his books were bestsellers in France, Germany and the US.Īfter being sent to work in a boot-blacking factory at 12 when his father went to prison for not paying his debts, the Victorian writer became rich on the back of his regular instalments. Most met with broad acclaim from the poorest members of society to Queen Victoria understood to be fans.
The Pickwick Papers, Dickens’s first success, was published in monthly one-shilling instalments, as was most of his work. If Dickens were around today he’d be interested in soaps as a platform for reaching as many people as possible,” she said. “It’s not surprising that modern soaps use methods employed by Dickens – the intense interest in colourful characters and the violent or exciting interchange between them. Tomalin compared Dickens to the writers of today’s soap operas in the Christmas issue of the listings magazine ahead of Dickensian, a new 20-part BBC drama written by Tony Jordan of EastEnders fame. “The need for food banks, the ending of children’s support from the state, the attack on the health services and the BBC, the universities being commercialised – so many of the things that Dickens fought for and stood for are being attacked.
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