The Turning Point

A Year that Changed Dickens and the World

Robert Douglas-Fairhurst author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Vintage Publishing

Published:1st Sep '22

Should be back in stock very soon

This paperback is available in another edition too:

The Turning Point cover

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

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 *

ISBN: 9781784708337

Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 22mm

Weight: 293g

368 pages