Life and Times of Charles Dickens

"The first Dickens biography was by his closest friend, John Forester, whose book appeared in 1874. Dozens of biographies have been written since then, but one of the best is..."Dickens" by Peter Ackroyd....'Dickens' remains his masterpiece: a vast, 1,195 page book, as capacious and varied as its subject. Ackroyd has a novelist's gift for pacing, and this biography rips along....I can think of no biography that provides a better sense of an author's working life....One puts down 'Dickens' with a rich, complete sense of the writer's life and mind, and with some feeling for how he might have written so many astonishing books.Ackroyd, Peter is the author of 'Life and Times of Charles Dickens', published 2003 under ISBN 9781592580026 and ISBN 1592580025.