The Turning Point
A Year that Changed Dickens and the World
Published on 1. September 2022
Book
Paperback/Softback
368 pages
978-1-78470-833-7 (ISBN)
Description
A TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR
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's also a turbulent time in the life of Charles Dickens, as he copes with a double bereavement and early signs that his marriage is falling apart. But this year will become the turning point in Dickens's career, as he embraces his calling as a chronicler of ordinary people's lives.
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.
'Sparklingly informative' Guardian
'Wonderfully entertaining' Observer
'It is hard to imagine a better book on Dickens' New Statesman
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's also a turbulent time in the life of Charles Dickens, as he copes with a double bereavement and early signs that his marriage is falling apart. But this year will become the turning point in Dickens's career, as he embraces his calling as a chronicler of ordinary people's lives.
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.
'Sparklingly informative' Guardian
'Wonderfully entertaining' Observer
'It is hard to imagine a better book on Dickens' New Statesman
Reviews / Votes
This tremendous book dazzles and delights... it's full of discoveries. A glorious book; revealing and unravelling Charles Dickens before our very eyes, melding his life and his work, using scholarship, wit and passion - a triumph. * Miriam Margolyes * This immersive biography, by the author of the Costa-shortlisted The Story of Alice, had me hooked... published in a sumptuous package, with illustrations throughout. * The Bookseller, Editor's Choice * Clever and witty, packed with fiercely academic research and erudite analysis, but written in featherlight, elegant prose. -- Natalie Haynes The Turning Point...builds incrementally towards Bleak House...[and] makes for a very satisfying finale... Robert Douglas-Fairhurst has taken pains of his own and this wonderfully entertaining book is the result. -- Anthony Quinn * Observer * Douglas-Fairhurst is a shrewd, amusing and original guide... [he] gives you fascinating facts... [and] a brisk and brilliant analysis of Bleak House. -- Laura Freeman * The Times * [The Turning Point] is beautifully written and packed with wonders and insight and I shall definitely be rereading it before the year is out. Moreover, by the author's holding the magnifying glass aloft and allowing the sun to focus on one spot, 1851, the leaf catches flame. -- A N Wilson * Oldie * [The Turning Point] hums with the intellectual life of the day. -- Rose Shepherd * Saga Magazine * Taking his cue from that novel [Bleak House], Douglas-Fairhurst uses a fascinating range of interconnected sources, side-plots and telling details to dramatise the complex social and imaginative web out of which it came...He gives us history not as grand narrative or teleology but as total immersion and multiplicity. As such, Douglas-Fairhurst invites us to feel what it felt like to be Dickens in 1851. -- Lucasta Miller * Financial Times * A fascinating biography that ultimately brings fresh insight to the life of Charles Dickens and his work as a novelist. -- Tom Williams * Spectator * Sparklingly informative * Guardian *More details
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Product notice
Paperback (UK-B)
Dimensions
Height: 195 mm
Width: 127 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
294 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78470-833-7 (9781784708337)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2021
Vintage Digital
€10.99
Available for download
Person
Robert Douglas-Fairhurst is a Professor of English Literature at the University of Oxford, and a Fellow of Magdalen College. His books include The Turning Point: A Year that Changed Dickens and the World, Becoming Dickens: The Invention of a Novelist, which won the Duff Cooper Prize, and The Story of Alice: Lewis Carroll and The Secret History of Wonderland, which was shortlisted for the Costa Biography Award and was a BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week. He writes regularly for publications including The Times, Guardian, TLS and Spectator. Radio and television appearances include Start the Week and The Culture Show, and he has also acted as the historical consultant on TV adaptations of Jane Eyre, Emma and Great Expectations, the BBC drama series Dickensian, and the feature film Enola Holmes. In 2015 he was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.