The Great Charles Dickens Scandal

First edition, first impression.  xii, 216pp.  Red cloth-covered boards with gilt titles on spine.  Blue endpapers.  8vo.  Cloth a little pushed at spine tips.  Lengthy inscription inked on the half title page else neat, clean, bright and tight.  In its original illustrated dust wrapper, slightly bumped on extreme edges and bumped on leading edge of inner front flap, some shelf wear visible on verso.

Charles Dickens was, to many Victorians, a champion of hearth and home.  But in 1858, when his marriage broke down, rumours began to circulate of his relationship with a young actress, Ellen Ternan, and with other women, including this sister-in-law.  Dickens spent the rest of life trying – largely successfully – to suppress the rumours; efforts which were continued by his children after his death.  But when his last surviving child died in 1934, revelations began to emerge regarding the great novelist and Ellen Ternan. This volume is the most detailed account to date  of the scandal to date, drawing on Dickens’ letters and other key primary sources.