This title was first published in 2001. An account of the activities of 19th-century publisher William Tinsley, particularly in relation to his authors and his chosen way of making a living. In considering the library-publishing system that dominated all aspects of fiction in the latter part of the 19th century, when down-payments rather than loyalties were the rewards of novelists, it may be surprising to find how wide were the variations in prices that publishers paid for such work. Differences appeared when individual publishers developed soft spots for particular authors, and in consequence they sometimes made fools of themselves. William Tinsley certainly did so, on several occasions, but was blessed, at least in later life, with the grace of never seriously regretting any of his mistakes. Examples of the nature of this good-hearted man are found in these pages. This account relies to an extent on Tinsley's two volumes of memoirs.

In Dickens's lifetime, and for a generation or so after, Edmund Hodgson Yates and George Augustus Sala were the best known and most successful of his "young men" - the budding writers who acknowledged him as their guide and mentor and whose literary careers the publicity and privately fostered. The book considers their personal and literary relationships with Dickens, with each other, and with other writers of the period, Bohemian and "respectable", including Yates's arch-enemy, his post-office colleague Anthony Trollope. But it also demonstrates that their life and writings - their fiction, private letters and occasional essays in verse and drama, as well as their already recognised contributions to the development of the "new journalism" - are interesting and historically illuminating in their own right, not merely pale reflections of the glory of greater writers. Extensive use is made of previously unpublished material.

Written by leading scholars, this collection of essays offers the first comprehensive and accessible book on Dickens's style.

Lady Colin Campbell was born Gertrude Elizabeth Blood in May 1857. She enjoyed a liberal upbringing for the day, and developed into an intelligent, artistic and beautiful young woman. In October 1880 she met Lord Colin Campbell, MP and youngest son of the 8th Duke of Argyll. Within three days they were engaged and, despite his family's objections, they married the following year. Gertrude was launched into an elevated social circle where she enjoyed the company of royalty, eminent politicians and famxous names of the day. But all was not well at home, as the couple's incompatibility became glaringly apparent. The marriage broke down and ended up in the dreaded divorce courts. Lord Colin Campbell accused his wife of adultery with four co-respondents and scandalised society with such a suggestion. After the trial, the couple went their separate ways. Gertrude slowly created a new life for herself as a journalist. Although shunned by much of society, her beauty, intelligence and wit were welcome in the more liberal circles of artists and writers. She was a close friend of the artist and dandy Whistler, and knew the Burne-Jones's. George Bernard Shaw listened to her advice on his early work, and remained a life-long friend, and Henry James used to visit her. But she had her enemies. She exchanged insults with Oscar Wilde, and was disliked by the notorious editor and newspaper proprietor Frank Harris. In her articles Gertrude advocated ideas such as bicycle lanes on roads, cremation as an alternative to burial and equal smoking rights for women. When many in her place would have quietly retired to the country, or found refuge in their nerves, she carved herself a career, threw herself into her sports, and created a new life as an independent woman. Yet little is known of her today; the few references cruelly describe her as a “sex goddess” or “houri”. Anne Jordan’s biography aims to redress the balance and give her life a full and fair hearing. This book tells the story of one of the most gifted women of her day and will appeal to readers interested in history and feminism.

The editors have transcribed 2,500 of Wilkie Collins's letters, around 700 of them previously unidentified, and have given them all a full scholarly annotation and context. The letters shed light on the personal life and business activities of this creative Victorian personality.

A major new biography that takes an unusual and illuminating approach to the great writer—immersing us in one year of his life—from the award-winning author of Becoming Dickens and The Story of Alice. The year is 1851. It's a time of radical change in Britain, when industrial miracles and artistic innovations rub shoulders with political unrest, poverty, and disease. It is also a turbulent year in the private life of Charles Dickens, as he copes with a double bereavement and early signs that his marriage is falling apart. But this formative year will become perhaps the greatest turning point in Dickens's career, as he embraces his calling as a chronicler of ordinary people's lives and develops a new form of writing that will reveal just how interconnected the world is becoming. The Turning Point transports us into the foggy streets of Dickens's London, closely following the twists and turns of a year that would come to define him and forever alter Britain's relationship with the world. Fully illustrated, and brimming with fascinating details about the larger-than-life man who wrote Bleak House, this is the closest look yet at one of the greatest literary personalities ever to have lived.

Award-winning Claire Tomalin, author of A Life of My Own, sets the standard for sophisticated and popular biography, having written lives of Jane Austen, Samuel Pepys, and Thomas Hardy, among others. Here she tackles the best recognized and loved man of nineteenth-century England, Charles Dickens; a literary leviathan whose own difficult path to greatness inspired the creation of classic novels such as Great Expectations, David Copperfield, Oliver Twist, and Hard Times. From his sensational public appearances to the obsessive love affair that led him to betray, deceive, and break with those closest to him, Charles Dickens: A Life is a triumph of the biographer’s craft, a comedy that turns to tragedy in a story worthy of Dickens’ own pen.