THE LIFE OF CHARLES DICKENS . By Thomas Wright Mr. Thomas
Wright's biography of Dickens (Herbert Jenkins, 18s.) may be described without serious inaccuracy as the labour of a lifetime. He started to write it, he. tells us, after preliminary research, in 1893, and would haVe published it in 1904 if circumstances had not then prevented him from discussing certain matters into which he is . now aide to go in detail. The value of his book is open to • some doubt, as, although he has been assiduous in searching, for and collating evidence both old and unused about Dickens' life, there is really very little new information of any conse- quence in it. Mr. Wright himself attaches most importance to the result of his researches upon the question of Dickens' relations with the actress Ellen Lawless Tertian, but since his views apparently rest chiefly on.statcnients made by Canon Benham not everyone will be inclined to accept them blindly. The book contains a certain amount of critical matter about Dickens' work, little of which has any value.. In short this biography will not supersede Ley's annotated reprint of Forster's biography, and can indeed hardly be preferred to any of the other competent lives of Dickens that have been published. Incidentally, though Mr. Wright is severe on Forster's errors, he is by no means blameless himself : e.g., " Jeniwip." for " Jiniwin ". (p. 130), and the statement (p. 24) that Dickens was " about five years old " in 1814 when his father came to London. Dickens was born in 1812.
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