Kindle Unlimited
Unlimited reading. Over 4 million titles. Learn more
Read for Free
OR
Kindle Price: $9.99

Save $8.00 (44%)

Promotions apply when you purchase

These promotions will be applied to this item:

Some promotions may be combined; others are not eligible to be combined with other offers. For details, please see the Terms & Conditions associated with these promotions.

Audiobook Price: $22.04

Save: $9.05 (41%)

Read with our free app
You've subscribed to ! We will preorder your items within 24 hours of when they become available. When new books are released, we'll charge your default payment method for the lowest price available during the pre-order period.
Update your device or payment method, cancel individual pre-orders or your subscription at
Your Memberships & Subscriptions

Buy for others

Give as a gift or purchase for a team or group.
Learn more

Buying and sending eBooks to others

  1. Select quantity
  2. Buy and send eBooks
  3. Recipients can read on any device

These ebooks can only be redeemed by recipients in the US. Redemption links and eBooks cannot be resold.
Kindle app logo image

Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.

Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.

Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.

QR code to download the Kindle App

Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs

Follow the author

A. N. Wilson
+ Follow
More books from this author
Something went wrong. Please try your request again later.

The Mystery of Charles Dickens Kindle Edition

by A.N. Wilson (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 477 ratings
See all formats and editions
Great on Kindle
Great Experience. Great Value.
iphone with kindle app
Putting our best book forward
Each Great on Kindle book offers a great reading experience, at a better value than print to keep your wallet happy.

Explore your book, then jump right back to where you left off with Page Flip.

View high quality images that let you zoom in to take a closer look.

Enjoy features only possible in digital – start reading right away, carry your library with you, adjust the font, create shareable notes and highlights, and more.

Discover additional details about the events, people, and places in your book, with Wikipedia integration.
Get the free Kindle app: Link to the kindle app page Link to the kindle app page
Enjoy a great reading experience when you borrow the Kindle edition of this book with your Kindle Unlimited membership. Learn more about Great on Kindle, available in select categories.

Winner of the Plutarch Award for Best Biography

A lively and insightful biographical celebration of the imaginative genius of Charles Dickens, published in commemoration of the 150th anniversary of his death.


Charles Dickens was a superb public performer, a great orator and one of the most famous of the Eminent Victorians. Slight of build, with a frenzied, hyper-energetic personality, Dickens looked much older than his fifty-eight years when he died—an occasion marked by a crowded funeral at Westminster Abbey, despite his waking wishes for a small affair. Experiencing the worst and best of life during the Victorian Age, Dickens was not merely the conduit through whom some of the most beloved characters in literature came into the world. He was one of them.

Filled with the twists, pathos, and unusual characters that sprang from this novelist’s extraordinary imagination, The Mystery of Charles Dickens looks back from the legendary writer’s death to recall the key events in his life. In doing so, he seeks to understand Dickens’ creative genius and enduring popularity. Following his life from cradle to grave, it becomes clear that Dickens’s fiction drew from his life—a fact he acknowledged. Like Oliver Twist, Dickens suffered a wretched childhood, then grew up to become not only a respectable gentleman but an artist of prodigious popularity. Dickens knew firsthand the poverty and pain his characters endured, including the scandal of a failed marriage. 

Going beyond standard narrative biography, A. N. Wilson brilliantly revisits the wellspring of Dickens’s vast and wild imagination, to reveal at long last why his novels captured the hearts of nineteenth century readers—and why they continue to resonate today. 

The Mystery of Charles Dickens is illustrated with 30 black-and-white images.

Read more Read less
Previous page
  1. Print length
    367 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    Harper
  5. Publication date
    August 4, 2020
  6. File size
    7826 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
  10. See all details
Next page
Add a debit or credit card to save time when you check out
Convenient and secure with 2 clicks. Add your card

Editorial Reviews

Review

"[An] utterly satisfying investigative narrative...Wilson fully comprehends the many complexities of the wily novelist, public performer, and secret lover...Wilson writes with precision, intuition, and enormous compassion for Dickens' senses of social justice and outrage, especially regarding children in the mercilessly materialist Victorian era...A marvelous exploration by an author steeped in the craft of his subject's elastic, elusive work."

-- "Kirkus Reviews (starred review)"

"Blend[s] perceptive analysis of the novels with parallel experiences in Dickens' life...Beyond the eye-opening analysis, Wilson also offers a moving personal account of why Dickens has meant so much to him."

-- "Booklist (starred review)"

About the Author

A. N. Wilson is a renowned British journalist and author. He has written several acclaimed biographies, including Tolstoy, C. S. Lewis, Jesus, and Paul. He taught for seven years at Oxford before becoming a journalist. He has won numerous awards, including the E. M. Forster Award, the Whitbread Biography Award, and the Somerset Maugham Award. A frequent contributor to the Daily Mail, Times Literary Supplement, New Statesman, Spectator, and Observer, he lives in London.

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07ZZ6R5QT
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Harper; Illustrated edition (August 4, 2020)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ August 4, 2020
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 7826 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 367 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.3 4.3 out of 5 stars 477 ratings

About the author

Follow authors to get new release updates, plus improved recommendations.
A. N. Wilson

A. N. Wilson

Brief content visible, double tap to read full content.
Full content visible, double tap to read brief content.

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more

Customer reviews

4.3 out of 5 stars
4.3 out of 5
477 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

MNIL
5.0 out of 5 stars Humanizes Dickens "The Inimitable" - a book Dickens himself would have liked to read
Reviewed in the United States on August 15, 2020
Verified Purchase
This is basically a set of several long essays on Dickens, discussing, in light of what we know now, a hundred and more years and many generations after he passed away, discussing ...

(review continues after long parenthetical)

long parenthetical ------ (and, in an interesting detail I had never known before, 47 years after the last human actor in the human drama that swirled around Dickens passed away in 1973 - that is, the daughter of his good friend - the daughter of the woman he was said to have been terribly in love with, despite being married to the sweetheart of his youth, and the younger sister of the man who destroyed much of the correspondence of their mother with Dickens)

--- discussing Dickens as an energetic person who tried to be charitable and exhausted himself in helping people, while harboring unkindness towards many in his heart; discussing Dickens as a proud Victorian father who considered his marriage to be a cross; discussing Dickens as one of the only inspired artists of his day who understood Poverty and Want from a personal perspective (the author does not say so, but I think that he is a Christian, he is very interested in what Dickens did and did not do for those who suffer in this world).

Five stars, of course - the author is very good at saying what he has to say in an understandable and concise and clear way, and the subject matter is, to me at least, endlessly fascinating.

One caveat - I have read all the Dickens novels except the last 2, so I do not know if there are spoilers in this book. There might be, but even if there are, remember that Dickens, like Shakespeare, and like almost nobody else, created dozens or hundreds of life-like fictional characters, so if you read this book this year and read a novel by Dickens years from now, the information you may have read here will no more decrease your appreciation of a novel of Dickens than, say, knowing that your grandparents ended up moving to Boca Raton in their 80s will ever spoil your appreciation of any story that someone who loved them ever tells you about their youth.

.
19 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
William Mortensen Vaughan
4.0 out of 5 stars Just the Facts, Please!
Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2020
Verified Purchase
This book is full of facts and data about Charles Dickens. As a life-long fan of his novel, A Christmas Carol, as well as the Webmaster of A U.S. Christmas Carol (a.k.a. Dickensian Carol), I was so eager to read and/or listen to this biography that I bought both the Kindle and the Audible versions, and I am already following along for the third time!

Although this biography makes the case that Charles Dickens was a far cry from the saint most of us probably assumed he was, being, instead, an abusive, hypocritical philanderer and laudanum addict who despised his whole family - especially his mother, this biography seems to treat Dickens with at least some of the dignity and respect this world-renowned author deserves. He became, in his lifetime, one of the most popular writers in the world, and he remains so 150 years after his death in 1870. Arguably, he "wrote the book on" Christmas.

The reason I'm docking this biography one Star is that I find some of it to be subjective drivel, and I find it disconcerting the way the author sporadically injects the first-person point of view and political commentary into this book which is, for the most part, objective statements of facts, in the third person, about this amazing author and the world he altered for at least 150 years, if not forever.
12 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
William Kingsley
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good book
Reviewed in the United States on April 6, 2021
Verified Purchase
A very good book. I should know: Of the thousand books I've read in the (more than) half a century, I have also read every one of Dickens' novels about 8 times since I was 10 years old. The best (and only) copies to read are the Penguin editions. Many years ago, I offered my young niece $100 if she would read "David Copperfield." She declined the offer which brings us to today; most of the younger generations wouldn't dream of reading a Dickens book. Granted, writings from the 1800s can be somewhat difficult but well worth it. In general, the American culture is now in degraded and "in the can."
20 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Sharon U.
5.0 out of 5 stars Great read about Dickens
Reviewed in the United States on May 10, 2021
Verified Purchase
You will fall into this biography spellbound and seeing new insights to the end. Wilson makes clear the appeal and the demons of this haunted genius.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Michael W
3.0 out of 5 stars Mystery of Dickens
Reviewed in the United States on January 4, 2022
Verified Purchase
Mixed bag, some really great to read and others that would induce sleep. I honestly didn't know what to expect. But did hope for better
Helpful
 Report
naomi groont
5.0 out of 5 stars Dickens What We didn’t know
Reviewed in the United States on March 4, 2021
Verified Purchase
Wilson writes a good book
Helpful
 Report
Bob From GB
4.0 out of 5 stars If you read Dickens you need this book, a good read with great documentation that you’ll appreciate.
Reviewed in the United States on July 7, 2021
Verified Purchase
An excellent book with an uneven pace. A tremendous reference to the life of Dickens. A couple comment late in the book by the author in reference to his own life that are out of place, but doesn’t detract from the excellence of the resource.
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
John D. Cofield
5.0 out of 5 stars Mystery Upon Mystery
Reviewed in the United States on January 3, 2021
Too many people today hear the name "Charles Dickens" and envision another one of those nineteenth century authors who wrote massively long novels no one has time to read anymore. And quite a few folks today hear the name "A.N. Wilson" and envision a twenty first century author whose brilliance is only rivaled by his idiosyncrasies. In Dickens' case the popular conception is wrong while in Wilson's it is correct, thereby making Wilson a perfect biographer to reacquaint us with the man once known as Boz.

The Mystery of Charles Dickens is a series of essays on Dickens' life rather than a traditional biography. The seven chapters reveal a man of lost beginnings and a truncated childhood, who married one woman and soon fell out of love with her, who then carried on a long romance with another woman, and who as a result spent much of his life concealing and making mysteries. His books were often semi-autobiographical and highly successful, as were the dramatic readings from them that he gave to massive crowds in Britain and the United States.

Wilson does an excellent job detailing Dickens' multiple mysteries. I especially enjoyed (if that's the right word) his detailed description of the novelist's final hours, as well as Wilson's own memoir-style recollections of his encounters with Dickens' books. The Mystery of Charles Dickens will open your eyes to the reality of the flawed genius who gave us Little Nell, Scrooge, Oliver Twist, and a host of other unforgettables.
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Marc Mulcahy
5.0 out of 5 stars Was a gift that Dickens fan loved!
Reviewed in Canada on January 11, 2021
Verified Purchase
Was a gift that Dickens fan loved!
Report
C. J. Tyler
5.0 out of 5 stars Cleverly constructed, informative and entertaining
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 2, 2020
Verified Purchase
As a veteran of Dickens biographies I didn't have high hopes for this book. However, its construction and style make this a most entertaining guide to Dickens' personality, the themes in his writing and his life story. Even a new Dickens reader would find plenty here - it's accessible, erudite and gripping.
4 people found this helpful
 Report
rodney pyne
5.0 out of 5 stars Compelling telling
Reviewed in Australia on September 24, 2020
Verified Purchase
This is compulsory reading for anyone interested in finding out who the celebrated Charles Dickens really was. There is just so much more to the writer than simply saying he is the man who invented Christmas and gave us so many wonderful tales of Victorian England. A N Wilson has thoroughly researched his subject . There is so much to learn about what really eventuated in Dickens' life. He was marred by his childhood experiences and his subsequent personal life was far from the image people liked to accept. His treatment of his wife and mother of his many children is simply deplorable. Two of his sons were effectively "transported" to Australia. He carried on a clandestine relationship with a young woman many years his junior for some rather murky reasons.
And yet. He was without doubt a great man.His readership is still worldwide.We mention him along with Shakespeare and Tolstoy and Balzac. Wilson does an excellent job of underscoring both the achievement and the frailty. His treatment of the final "unfinished" novel,"The Mystery of Edwin Drood" is rivetting and authoritative. This book is a must for all readers and fans alike.
Report
alphebel
3.0 out of 5 stars Your own experience in reading Dickens.
Reviewed in Canada on September 8, 2020
Verified Purchase
Wilson shows impressive knowledge of Dicken' life and works but is tedious on his insistence on every page that D's work simply reflects his actual life.
Report
Sarah loves books tea and rainy days
4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating biography of Charles Dickens
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on July 22, 2020
Verified Purchase
This was a fascinating and engrossing biography of the great Victorian novelist but I don't think that it will appeal to everyone. I also think you need to have a good knowledge of Dickens and his life and works already to really enjoy the book to its full potential.

Dickens is such an intriguing paradox of a man. Capable of great charity and love but also great cruelty especially to his wife. A man of genius but also the victim of cruel and unloving parents - his books a result of the trauma of his early life. Each chapter looks at a different mystery of Dickens and his life but many questions are left unanswered

I adored this book and I now want to find out more about Ellen Ternan and I feel inspired to re-read Dickens as well!
5 people found this helpful
 Report
Report an issue

Does this item contain inappropriate content?
Report
Do you believe that this item violates a copyright?
Report
Does this item contain quality or formatting issues?
Report