Charles Dickens was a phenomenon: a hardworking journalist, the father of ten children, a tireless walker and traveller, a supporter of liberal social causes, but most of all a great novelist - the creator of characters who live immortally in the English imagination. From unpromising beginnings, he rose to scale all the social and literary heights, when he died, the world mourned, and he was buried - against his wishes - in Westminster Abbey. Yet the brilliance concealed a divided character: a republican, he disliked America; sentimental about the family in his writings, he took up passionately with a young actress; usually generous, he cut off his impoverished children. Claire Tomalin paints an unforgettable portrait of Dickens, capturing brilliantly the complex character of this great genius.