Charles Dickens

Biography

Charles Dickens (1812-1870) published A Tale of Two Cities in 1859, the year of his marital separation from Catherine Hogarth after 22 years and ten children. He had fallen in love with a young actress, Ellen Ternan, and the relationship was an open secret that destroyed his public image of domestic virtue. Dickens was also at the peak of his fame and his restlessness — performing theatrical readings of his own work to exhausted audiences, running two magazines simultaneously, writing at speed that was killing him. He was simultaneously the most celebrated novelist in England and a man in private crisis. His biographers have consistently read A Tale of Two Cities as the marital crisis rendered as historical allegory: the man who sacrifices himself so the woman he loves can be happy with another man.

Charles Dickens at a glance