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    Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens
    Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens
    Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens
    Ebook273 pages3 hours

    Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens

    By Robert Gottlieb

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    The strange and varied lives of the ten children of the world's most beloved novelist

    Charles Dickens, famous for the indelible child characters he created—from Little Nell to Oliver Twist and David Copperfield—was also the father of ten children (and a possible eleventh). What happened to those children is the fascinating subject of Robert Gottlieb's Great Expectations. With sympathy and understanding he narrates the highly various and surprising stories of each of Dickens's sons and daughters, from Kate, who became a successful artist, to Frank, who died in Moline, Illinois, after serving a grim stretch in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

    Each of these lives is fascinating on its own. Together they comprise a unique window on Victorian England as well as a moving and disturbing study of Dickens as a father and as a man.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateNov 27, 2012
    ISBN9781466827769
    Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens
    Author

    Robert Gottlieb

    Robert Gottlieb (1931 - 2023) was a legendary book editor and writer who shaped the modern literary canon. He was editor-in-chief of Simon and Schuster, the head of Alfred A. Knopf, and editor of The New Yorker. He contributed frequently to The New York Times Book Review, The New Yorker, and The New York Review of Books, and the New York Observer as dance critic. His books include Great Expectations: The Sons and Daughters of Charles Dickens, George Balanchine: The Ballet Maker, Sarah: The Life of Sarah Bernhardt, Avid Reader: A Life, and a collection of essays Near-Death Experiences . . . and Others. In 2015, he was presented with the Award for Distinguished Service to the Arts by the American Academy of Arts and Letters. A documentary film exploring his fifty-year relationship with the writer Robert Caro, Turn Every Page, was released in 2022.

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    • 3/5
      The author takes a look at the children of author Charles Dickens. It depicts Dickens as a father who enjoyed was a good father during their early years when they were playing but as one who was eager to get them out of the house and self-sufficient too. It also shows that he was a bad husband, with a marriage resulting in separation. The author divides the look at each child into two sections -- their life before Dickens' death in 1870 and their life after (if they survived to that point). Unfortunately this made for some awkwardness in the flow of the novel. It would have been better to have treated each child as a separate chapter individually, both before and after Dickens' demise. Several of his children died young. Others lived to middle age. Only one or two made it to an expected age of death. Some of his children took positions in India; some in Australia; one in Canada. One was an artist. Another was an attorney who became a judge. While the book is interesting in places, it bogs down in others. I would have preferred better citation of materials used in the form of footnotes or endnotes instead of as a general word about the sources. I think the book's usefulness in academic circles is somewhat limited because of the lack of proper citation.
    • 4/5
      If you have a father as famous and as domineering as Charles Dickens was in his time, you can't help but turn out a little odd.This collective biography of Charles Dickens' children demonstrates what it was like to grow up as a child of a literary icon. Dickens's sons and daughters worshipped him, and he was a doting father to them when they were little, but he didn't know what to do with them when they got older. In particular, Dickens found his sons disappointing (primarily because they lacked his ambition and drive). He couldn't wait to ship they boys off to far-flung parts of the world as soon as they were old enough to go. Dickens' shabby treatment of his wife Catherine, whom he publicly humiliated and left for actress Ellen Ternan, further divided the family. Some of his children lived to old ages; others died young--all who survived infancy (except for Henry, who became a successful jurist) were plagued by financial problems. The boys tended to gamble, live extravagantly and/or make unwise investments, and the girls suffered due to the lack of opportunities for women of their era.Gottlieb's collective biography of Dickens's ten children with Catherine (he also mentions that Dickens may have had a son with Ellen Ternan) is mildly entertaining, yet also disturbing. The book is oddly structured. In part one there is a chapter about each child's life before Dickens' death, then in part two there is a chapter about each child's life after Dickens's death, as if the sudden passing of their father in 1870 was the key turning point in each of their lives. This structure makes some repetition inevitable.Gottlieb quotes Dickens's daughter Katey's letter to George Bernard Shaw: "If you could make the public understand that my father was not a joyous, jocund gentleman walking around the world with a plum pudding and a bowl of punch, you would greatly oblige me." (p. 171). Gottlieb succeeds in doing this as well.
    • 3/5
      A biography of Dickens' ten children is no easy task and Gottlieb creates a highly readable book. Dividing the book into the childrens' lives while Dickens was alive and after his death is an intriguing structure although providing their lifespans in both halves of the book rather than just the first would have made things a little clearer for me. The children themselves are interesting cast of characters with disparate lives in the army in India, Australian sheep stations, and as painters (among others). However, Gottlieb makes broad sweeping statements about the nature of each of the children without providing substantial enough evidence to keep some of them from rubbing me the wrong way. Additionally, the lack of any citations in text irritate me as well. An interesting introduction but not a thorough academic source for individuals interested in the Dickens children.
    • 3/5
      Although this book contains interesting information about the ten children of Charles Dickens and describes Charles Dickens unfavorably as a husband and father, the book is poorly arranged. Separate chapters are devoted to each son’s and daughter’s life; for those who survived Dickens, an additional chapter describes each life after Dickens’ death. I would have greatly preferred to have the whole life of a son or daughter discussed once instead of chopping up the narrative. Also, especially in the first part of the book describing the early lives of the sons and daughters, Dickens’ cruel treatment of his wife, whom he abandoned and forced to live in another house without custody of her children, is often repeated.
    • 4/5
      Although much is known about Charles Dickens, His very public breakup with Catherine, the mother of his 9 children, his mistreatment of her, I have never read very much about the children. Gottlieb adroitly tackles the fate of the Dickens children, how they fared after the breakup of their parents marriage and what became of them after Dicken's early death.. Dickens was by all accounts a magical parent, entered into his children's games, was very involved in their lives and schooling, but he had another side that was very strict, rules must be followed or their were dire consequences. Very well written and informative book chronicling the lives and mishaps of these children. Henry, turned out to be the most level headed and successful of the boys. My only criticism of this book, is that especially in the beginning, tended to be a bit repetitive. I did enjoy reading this book and once again I have divided feelings about Charles Dickens, the man, the husband and the father. How much does genius and fame excuse?

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