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Charles Dickens: A Life - by Claire Tomalin

1,084 views · Published 28 September 2011 · 2:57 · Indexed 14 November 2026

Channel: Waterstones · 2011 · Entertainment

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The Waterstone's exclusive special edition has an appendix not in the ordinary edition consisting of 13 of Dickens's greatest letters. Dickens was a prolific and marvellous letter writer (his Collected Letters amount to 12 volumes). He wrote them throughout his life and they cover an enormous range of topics: from comic set-pieces written for the entertainment of friends, flirtatious missives, political tirades, affectionate notes, business matters to do with publishing, etc The 13 in this edition have been chosen to represent the range of his interests and the wonder of his writing - they include a funny early piece on a local election (straight out of Pickwick Papers), a deliciously flirtatious letter to an old girlfriend who'd got back in touch with him, an impassioned description of a visit to a poor school written with the intention of screwing money out of a rich philanthropist, and his most shameful letter in which he blackens the name of his wife. It's all here in the letters: the teeming genius of a great writer. Buy Charles Dickens: A Life - Waterstone's Special Edition by Claire Tomalin on Waterstones.com (http://bit.ly/niDqOD) or at your local Waterstone's (http://bit.ly/85YOJ9)

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