Overview
In his bestselling What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew, Daniel Pool brilliantly unlocked the mysteries of the English novel. Now, in his long-awaited Dickens' Fur Coat and Charlotte's Unanswered Letters, Pool turns his keen eye to England's great Victorian novelists themselves, to reveal the surprisingly human private side of their public genius. Dickens' Fur Coat and Charlotte's Unanswered Letters explores the outrageous publicity stunts, bitter rivalries, rows, and general mayhem perpetrated by this group of supposedly prudish - yet remarkably passionate and eccentric - authors and publishers. Against a vividly painted backdrop of London as the small world it once was, the book brings on the players in the ever-changing, brave new world of big publishing - a world that gave birth to author tours, big advances, "trashy" fiction, flashy bookstalls in train stations (for Victorian "airport fiction"), celebrity libel suits, bogus blurbs, even paper recycling (as unsold volumes reappeared as trunk linings, fish wrappings, and fertilizer).Editorials
Chicago Tribune
If you've ever shed a tear over a Dickens novel or sighed over Heathcliff or Cathy, or if you just love what Henry James called those 'huge, floppy nineteenth century English novels,' you'll relish Dickens' Fur Coat and Charlotte's Unanswered Letter.Washington Post
Anyone interested in the juicier bits of literary history will enjoy this book.School Library Journal
YA--Once again, Pool enters the literary world of Victorian England. He adeptly intertwines interesting moments in the lives of such renowned figures as Charles Dickens, the Brontes, and George Eliot with the history of the British book-publishing industry and the development of a newly emerging, educated middle class that became the market for the novel. The author includes several comparisons to modern-day life that are sure to put YAs in touch with this period. Photographs and portraits of authors and publishing locations appear throughout. A substantial bibliography of books and periodical articles is included. This book should appeal to those interested in these literary personalities and their work.--Barbara Arthur, Kings Park Library, Burke, VAKirkus Reviews
Another informal, delightfully entertaining foray into the world of the Victorian novel by the author of What Jane Austen Ate and Charles Dickens Knew (1993).In 1836, when Dickens wrote The Pickwick Papers to accompany comic prints, prose writing was "a low-rent activity," Pool notes. Yet within ten years, Dickens was besieged by fans during a visit to America, and the novel was well on its way toward such solid respectability that George Eliot's books could be termed "second Bibles." When Wilkie Collins broke through that respectability with his "sensation novels," the public gleefully responded by snapping up not just his writing but Woman in White cloaks and perfume—the commercial tie-ins of the day. It is with a puckish sense of humor and a sharp ear for gossip that Pool puts a human face on his account of the progress of English publishing. In his hands, subjects such as the constraints and demands of serial writing, the power of lending libraries, and the challenges of satisfying an increasingly straitlaced public morality become plot twists with which his characters must contend. And what characters! Charlotte Brontë innocently setting off rumors by dedicating the second edition of Jane Eyre to Thackeray, whose wife was insane. Thackeray and Dickens squabbling publicly, ostensibly over a magazine article about the author of Vanity Fair (Urged to make peace, Thackeray said, "It is a quarrel, I wish it to be a quarrel, and it will always be a quarrel."). Dickens haunted by memories of working in a blacking factory: "I often forget in my dreams that I have a dear wife and children . . . and wander desolately back to that time." Elizabeth Gaskell enthusiastically producing a biography of her friend Charlotte Brontë that turns out to be far more colorful than accurate.
Great Books meets celebrity gossip: a rare, literate entertainment.