About this item
Highlights
- "A dark hymn to pre-Victorian London in all its grotty glory.
- Author(s): Alan Humm
- 268 Pages
- Fiction + Literature Genres, Alternative History
Description
About the Book
Famed author Dickens' affair jeopardizes his life, marriage, and reputation, culminating in a Christmas confrontation that could ruin him forever.
Book Synopsis
"A dark hymn to pre-Victorian London in all its grotty glory." Nick Perry, author of The Loop
Charles Dickens is a newly famous author and a man who has only just married. He thinks that he is about to become a father.
Why, then, does he go wandering London after dark and why, under the influence of a famous clown, does he begin an affair with Sarah, a barmaid who works in a North London pub?
While his own descriptions of sex barely exist, he becomes immersed in an affair so all-consuming that his life begins to fall apart. He takes to drink, he develops a liking for rough company, he even steals a necklace. Where will it end?
During a Christmas entertainment held in his own house, Dickens, Sarah, and his wife edge towards a confrontation that has the potential to ruin him for ever.
Review Quotes
"This is absolutely terrific-thoroughly steeped in Dickens's own idioms and ideas while also taking a step back and coolly assessing them from a distance. It's ... reminiscent (in a good way) of the rich period atmospheres generated by those two neo-Victorian Peters, Ackroyd and Carey." Robert Douglas-Fairhurst, author of Becoming Dickens
"A remarkable Dickens-fi debut." Philip Hoare, author of Albert and the Whale
"A work of sublime psychogeography, a dark hymn to pre-Victorian London in all its grotty glory. Humm follows the ambitious young novelist Charles Dickens into the city's rookeries in search of edgy stories and characters. As he finds himself drawn into a vortex of crime, sexual intrigue and deceit, he realises that he won't be able to remain a detached observer in this seductive, dangerous underworld." Nick Perry, author of The Loop