There's no doubt that Jane Smiley has read everything Dickens has written. Her point in writing this short biography is to do a critical analysis of Dickens's major works, adding personal information where appropriate. She also emphasizes the idea that Dickens was the first modern celebrity. When he decides to divorce his wife, with whom he'd had ten children, his readers are outraged. When he goes on a reading tour, people pack the various venues as if he were a modern rock star. We see him in action, acting out the murder scene in OLIVER TWIST with such passion that Smiley arrives at the conclusion that this probably killed him.

Smiley's professorial tone and syntax is a bit off-putting. Also, when she finally gets around to Dickens's affair with actress Ellen Ternan, she claims, due to Dickens's secretive nature, there's not much to tell. Was he a kind old uncle, offering a struggling actress his support, or was it true , as his daughter seemed to think, that they had children together?

It's fun to try to match Dickens's fictional characters with real life persons. Was Estella in GREAT EXPECTATIONS Ellen Ternan, or was she Maria Beadnell, with whom he had an unrequited four-year relationship before he got married?
I would have liked to have seen some pictures of his children, all of whom seemed to be ne'er-do-wells, except for his son, Henry. DICKENS, the 1990 biography by Peter Ackroyd, seems to be a good bet if you want more about his social life. One result of reading the book was that I ran right out and bought OUR MUTUAL FRIEND, the last complete novel he wrote, which Smiley claims is a near-perfect novel.

Dave Schwinghammer's Fargo-esque novel, SOLDIER'S GAP, is available on Authorsden and on Amazon.com, new and used.