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Publishers are gearing up to celebrate the bicentenary of Charles Dickens' birth on 7th February 2012‚ and it is a tale of more than two books as titles on the Victorian author and his life jostle for attention.
Biographies penned by actor Simon Callow and Whitbread-winner Claire Tomalin will be going head-to-head in October, with Carlton Books also bringing out an illustrated biography, Charles Dickens, by Lucinda Dickens Hawksley, Dickens' great-great-great-grandaughter. The title includes never-before-seen memorabilia from the Dickens Museum archives‚ including letters from Dickens to friends describing key events in his life, and photos of the writer and his family.
Viking will be publishing Tomalin's biography of the author, who was born in Hampshire in 1812, Charles Dickens: A Life, as a £30 hardback released on 6th October. Tomalin's previous works include The Invisible Woman: A Biography of Nelly Ternan, the woman for whom Dickens left his first wife‚ which is being made into a film. Tony Lacey, Tomalin's editor, said this book was a "kind of unfinished business . . . we thought in a way that Dickens was the big subject lurking in the background". Tomalin's book, said Lacey, was "sympathetic . . . it brilliantly captures Dickens as a paradoxical man".
HarperCollins' biography by Simon Callow‚ who played the writer in a one-man play‚ focuses on Dickens as a man and a showman, his theatrical and public-speaking ventures, and his life as one of the first "celebrity authors". It will be published as a £12.99 hardback on 2nd February 2012. Editorial director Martin Redfern said: "It is very much about Dickens the man, trying to remind us what a tremendous life-force he was."
Other titles around the anniversary include two from Frances Lincoln, Charles Dickens at Home and Charles Dickens: Scenes from an Extraordinary Life, to be published on 13th and 27th October respectively. From Templar will come children's title Charles Dickens: A Life of Storytelling—A Legacy of Change, published in hardback on 1st November as part of its historical notebooks series.