A. N. WilsonReviews

Wilson sheds unflattering light on Dickens, mainly focusing on the time leading up to his death.

An intriguing look at the Victorian era via the eyes of those who shaped that culture. The era is revealed as one that readied us for the modern era through an extensive volume of anecdotes and details.

Never been able to get beyond the first two chapters but I trust ANW

Haven't got beyond the first chapter, but I trust him

passion and genius of Paul

The life of Charles Dickens was as convoluted and as mysterious as any of his novels, which should not be surprising given that his novels were in many respects inspired by his life. A.N. Wilson explores all this in his 2020 book “The Mystery of Charles Dickens.”

Dickens, Wilson tells us, was in many respects as fictional a character as any he created on the page. He was, in other words, often a hypocrite, not always practicing the values in his own life that he so often preached in his fiction. His secret affair with the young actress Nelly Ternan, which did not become public until years after his death, is Wilson's prime example, to which he returns again and again. (Dickens wasn't alone in his deceit. After his death, Nelly lied about her age, pretended she had been just a little girl when she met Dickens and then married a clergyman.)

The great author hated his own mother and, after fathering 10 children, despised his own wife. He much preferred his wife's sister, who faithfully served Dickens for much of his life.

In successive chapters, Wilson writes about the mystery of Dickens's childhood, the mystery of his marriage, the mystery of his charity and so on, always paying close attention to the author's fiction to see what it reveals about each subject.

Sometimes Wilson can be as convoluted and as mysterious as anything relating to Charles Dickens, yet Dickens fans will find his book full of fascinating insights into both the man and his works.½

A decent overview of the Elizabethan era and the many historical figures it encompassed. Still, a few things bothered me about this book. The author makes a passing comment about the start of the Dutch Revolt coinciding with the onset of menopause in Queen Elizabeth I and possibly impacting her decisions (or lack thereof), before going on to say that the situation would have challenged any monarch, regardless of gender. Why then, was the comment necessary to put in print at all? Later on in the book, the author states as fact that Henry VIII had syphilis when actually this is highly debated by scholars and it's virtually impossible to definitively diagnosis any disease at a five-century remove. These kinds of statements made me wary of using this book to absorb too much new information from the text, although I was intrigued by the author's connection between the Elizabethan era and more recent conflicts in Ireland.

Folio society edition very nice as usual. I learned what "cock-a-hoop" means.

The mystery here for me is what exactly this book is about. For one thing it isn’t is an informative biography of Dickens.

The author uses the events surrounding Dicken’s final years and death as a foundation to present a series of speculative ruminations on how the true reflection of Dickens’ life is to be found in the pages of his novels.

Unfortunately it comes across as self indulgent, rambling, and pretentious, relying on an intimate knowledge of Dickens’ works and nineteenth century literature in general.

Wilson is an interesting writer. Unfortunately, in this book he turns his undeniable talents towards producing one big long tabloid scandal sheet.½

reviewed very critically by N.T. Wright in Who Was Jesus? 1992

A fascinating biography that is a good example of a "cultural biography". That is this is more than just the story of Tolstoy's life but also a chronicle of the culture in which he lived and the importance of that to his life and work. In addition it is a very readable book that is among the best biographies in my experience.

For all that Wilson is such a good writer, a subject such as knowledge and beliefs about God is beyond reach for most of us. Wilson writes from a believer's perspective but he is still baffled by the claims and demands of Christianity. His conclusion is that a stoic like persistence in prayer will bring the pilgrim to an encounter with Christ.
As a note, not long after this book was written Wilson gave it all away and found himself atheist, only to reaffirm his Christianity some twenty years later.
Well worth the reading.

The Elizabethans provides a broad overview of the Elizabethan period discussing politics, religion, literature and music. The book concludes with an essay on Hamlet explaining how the play was tied into the period.

The book is more suitable for readers who are already familiar with the period since the author tends to splatter names of obscure people and events across each page.

Oof. A very mixed bag indeed. First: you probably really need to be a lover of Dickens's books (as I am), and know them fairly well, to be familiar with the stories, plots, and characters to comfortably follow Wilson's many allusions and references. Second: if you love Dickens's books, and even if you know quite a bit about his life, be prepared to find out even more about him that is not pretty.

Example: a peasant workers' rebellion in Jamaica in 1865 killed 20 whites and a black member of the assembly. The British governor rounded up 600 blacks and killed them, and then burned down over 1000 of the workers' huts. There was an outcry in England against this overreaction; Dickens furiously defended him and called the critics "jawbones of asses." He was a monster of control: every morning he inspected every room of the house, and woe betide the person who had left a curtain awry or a crumb on the carpet. While running Urania Cottage, the home for "fallen women," he hand-picked every young woman to be admitted, selected and directed every piece of furniture, every picture on the wall, down to the women's clothing, and dictated what they were to be taught - all in order to be shipped to Australia as obedient wives to the male colonists there. It is suggested that his secret mistress bore him at at least one child, and the lack of any death certificates suggests he may have simply taken the babies away and put them up for adoption. Given his well-known appalling treatment of his long-suffering wife Kate and his indifference and even animosity towards his own children (more than one one them pronounced him a "wicked" man who "didn't give a damn about any of us"), I guess we shouldn't be surprised.

Among the several "mysteries" Wilson muses on is what he calls Dickens's "hypersexuality." It is indeed a little creepy that his most idealized, perfect female characters are little, timid, child-like, virtually sexless beings, while even after he decided he couldn't stand his wife, continued to impregnate her year after year after year. There are hardly any healthy mother-child relations to be found in his books; he loathed his own mother, so there's a lot of unpacking to do there. Wilson is quick to jump on an offhand comment about silver nitrate in the ocean and suggest that maybe Dickens had the clap.

And Wilson does a lot of this: there is so much speculation, fantasy, imagination at work here that it's hard to sort out from demonstrable facts (as far as we can know them). There's a lot of "surely he must have," "it's not unreasonable to think that," and "what if...?" He goes so far as to posit that Dickens may not have actually collapsed at his desk at Gad's Hill, but rather in Nelly Ternan's bed and embrace at her house (where Dickens kept her for years), and then an elaborate scheme of secret carriage rides, etc., got him back home so his death would be conducted in a socially acceptable manner - all based on a discrepancy between the amount of a check he cashed that morning and the cash found in his pocket later that day. Really? Hmm.

Toward the end, Wilson veers off into his own memory of attending a ghastly private school where the boys were routinely beaten while the master masturbated, and other hideous abuses. He suggests that Dickens's own suffering and dark side, as transmuted into his art, appeal to us because he has "been there," witnessed and experienced dreadful things, and turned them into something else: dramatic, heroic, even comedic, and resolved them into rewards for the good and punishments for the bad. Maybe so. I certainly find the books engaging, comforting, entertaining, and dazzling. But at the end, the mystery Wilson ultimately left me with is the long-standing one of how we reconcile (or refuse to) the chasm between an artist's behavior in life and his or her art. Can you love or hate, accept or reject, one or the other, when they are inseparable? This book doesn't really help with that one.

Summary: A full length biography, Prince Consort of Queen Victoria, stressing his contributions to cultural and political life in Victorian England, published on the two hundredth anniversary of his birth.

Most of us, at least on “this side of the pond” mostly know of Prince Albert as the subject of a prank beginning with the line “do you have Prince Albert in a can?” Actually, in reading this biography, the prank has added irony both in that its subject was a very serious man, and that for one who died so young, he accomplished so much. A. N. Wilson’s biography, published on the two hundredth anniversary of Albert’s birth goes far to redress that unfamiliarity.

Wilson presents Albert as the son of a Coburg Duke (Ernst I), who failed at marriage but was determined to prepare his sons for dynastic greatness. Albert learned not only the lessons that prepared him for this station, but also shaped the strong sense of rectitude he brought to his eventual marriage with Victoria, a Coburg cousin who was in most direct succession to William IV. He also develops the influence of Stockmar, Albert’s mentor from his early teen years through the first decade of his marriage.

Wilson portrays the genuine love affair between Albert and Victoria, initially cool to him but warming to great passion, and the lukewarm reception of Commons, reducing his proposed annual grant. At the same time, Wilson teases out the complicated character of that marriage, of Albert’s quest for control, even influence over royal matters, and how Victoria’s nine pregnancies played into all of that. At very least, the two contributed to the great influence of the House of Coburg in dynastic affairs across Europe through their progeny!

Much of the account explores the struggle Albert had with his position–for most of the time, merely husband of the Queen, and only at the end of his life Prince Consort. His own son was ahead of him in precedence. He aspired to so much more, trying to shape foreign affairs through long missives to foreign secretaries, as well as weighing in on political matters. Over time, he helped shape Victoria’s approach to constitutional monarchy that sustained her popularity, and that of the monarchy long after her death. He shrewdly managed royal finances, allowing for the purchase of Osborne House on the Isle of Wight.

One of his distinctive contributions was as Chancellor of Cambridge University, overseeing the modernization of the curriculum stressing modern history and the sciences. Another was the Exhibition of 1851 and the develop of the complex of museums in Kensington known as “Albertopolis,” later complimented by Royal Albert Hall, a premier concert venue. Wilson portrays the intensity of Albert’s work ethic for his adopted country, recognized only late in his short life when, finally, he was designated “Prince Consort.”

There is an air of sadness that hovers over this hard-working man of rectitude. He found himself worn by the moods of Victoria, the troubles of Europe, and the evidence of profligacy on the part of his own son Bertie. Sadly, he was a seriously ill man, possibly dying of stomach cancer. Perhaps he pushed himself so hard, knowing his time was so short. It was sad that he could not bask in his considerable contributions to the monarchy and England.

Wilson not only portrays the man, but the various key figures like Peel and Palmerston, and the transformation occurring in England, to which Albert had contributed. Of course, all of this was in the backdrop of Victoria, who went on to reign for four decades after Albert’s death at age 42, in the end showing herself stronger even than Albert. This is an important account of a figure whose impact is still felt two hundred years after his birth.

Nasty, Mean spirited biography.

Is Dickens a jerk through the lens of 2020, or is he a universal jerk? So, Rousseau giving up his 5 children to a foundling home whilst writing books about the proper way to raise children - objective jerk. But Dickens sending his wife away and threatening to disown his children if they visited her, moving his teenage mistress in, sending his sons off to the colonies if they annoyed him, does it just look bad now? Obviously in 2020 he wouldn't be able to do most of that. But would he find ways to be just as monstrous as V.S. Naipul? But let’s put all that aside. What’s the measure of Dickens as a writer? For me, it's mixed feelings: pleasure and (resigned) dislike. I don't mind the discursiveness; Dickens brings the variety together, albeit not always explicitly belaboring the unity of the world/story (even better). —nor the caricatural strokes: these, too, disclose, and, unfair though it might be to the unique inner life of every snowflake, caricature is how we grasp the periphery of complexity, the complexity we know intellectually must be there in those others at the periphery of our experience. I think it's generally fair to say that Dickens' characters usually evolve (if they do) in fits and starts and by sudden revelations, epiphanies or moral lessons learned, rather than gradual realisations. For me it's not the cheesy humour that is the most difficult thing to take but the lachrymose sentimentality that occasionally afflicts him. you have to accept it in a wholehearted manner and buy into it: a fantasy world just a few inches distant from our own with its own rules, in which everything, like a cartoon or a TV soap opera, is exaggerated.

A recent newspaper article reminded me of the English writer-biographer A.N. Wilson. His name was not unfamiliar, so I looked him up in my library and yes, I had one of his books on my stacks: “Dante in Love”. It is a nice - looking illustrated hardcover, first edition and it seems that I purchased or received it immediately after its publication, in 2011. As I did not remember to have read it from front to back, I must have probably just dipped in, got bored and shelved it away. I gave it a 2 and 1/2 stars’ appreciation on LT. Not very generous and not fair, as I now understand after a second reading.

For there was a second reading. While leafing through it, I got captivated and read it again, this time from the first to the last page. Finishing books nowadays, are in my case already a pretty sure sign of quality. As I grow older, I get impatient with books.

Dante in Love is in fact a huge gloss on Dante Alighieri masterpiece Commedia. In his book, a long narrative poem, now rechristened as the ‘Divine Commedy’, Dante describes his wandering through the Catholic sceneries of afterlife - Hell, Purgatory, Paradise. He is not walking alone, he has several guides who walk at his side: Virgil, Beatrice and (surprisingly nowadays) Bernard de Clairvaux. During his journey, Dante meets and interacts with people he once knew (personally or from reputation) and who are now trapped in one of the stages of the afterlife. The end of his journey and his book brings him in the blinding and blessing light of the Lord himself.

It is generally agreed that Dante’s Commedia is a masterpiece; just like the paintings of Giotto or Cimabue are masterpieces. As Dante judges indirectly all the people he knew by positioning them in different parts of the afterlife, his Commedy is in fact a window on the mentality, the thoughts and the reasoning’s of the Medieval and Christian world. Unfortunately, with each generation that passes, the comprehension of what exactly is written down and how we are to understand it all fades away. Dante’s Commedia’s original was a manuscript, it was written and finished between 1308 and 1320. Books and printing did not even exist back then.

Because it is so old, and because our understanding of the world Dante describes fades away, we need books as the one Wilson wrote. A detailed, step by step recreation of Dante’s life and the world in which he lived. The Florence, Rome and Venice of Dante are not yet the cities we now recognize, not even from old paintings. Artists did not do realistic paintings of cities in the time of the Commedia. The countries Italy, Germany and France hardly exist, their borders constantly changing. Cities are dominant and the cities are brutally ruled and mismanaged by families. The mob and the bully rule. The worldview is impregnated by the church and by a dream of an imperial Christian Europe. But neither the Church nor the Christian Emperor have full control and rebellions and heresies flare up at any moment. When the Pope resists Philips the Fair, the King of France sends a handful of thugs to the Papal palace for an iron - fisted slap in the face.

Wilson describes it all with enthusiasm. He has been reading and studying the Commedia all his life and he now shares generously all his acquired knowledge. With him, we follow Dante’s life-path, his rise and fall, his banishment from Florence, his wanderings, his meetings, his doings, his…Loves. For there is Beatrice too, that beautiful girl Dante first sees at the age of eleven and whose platonic love will still charm readers seven hundred years later.

Not all chapters captivated me fully along the pages, but I really enjoyed the rereading this time and I have corrected my initial appreciation to four stars.

An interesting and good read.

A. N. Wilson's biography of Dickens is not linear, and is the better for it in my opinion. The death of Dickens is where the book begins, and his death is the touchstone to which it returns. Dickens's death is shrouded in mystery because he may have been with his young mistress when he died.

The flaws and merits of Dickens (personal as well as literary) are all covered, drawing useful parallels to his fiction with thorough citations, yet Wilson does not stray so deep into the scholarly weeds that you must be a Dickens expert to find the book interesting. Dickens cannot be separated from his terrible childhood and the constant threat of poverty, and his compelling characters were in most cases drawn directly from real life. Dickens the author cannot be separated from Dickens the actor, and Dickens drew large characters who could be transported from page to stage. Happily for us, they lend themselves beautifully to movie and screen adaptations.

History and human progress do not reflect kindly upon Dickens as a husband to his wife Catherine, and Wilson makes sure the reader understands just how loathsome he was to her, perhaps because, the author suggests, she came to remind him of his own mother. Dickens was both extraordinarily prideful of his literary stardom, and not proud enough in thinking that his "sacredly private" domestic arrangements would be kept that way by posterity. Women are still Dickens's Achilles heel, as Wilson argues. He could not fully bring any literary woman to life, even his heroines--and so modern readers cannot help but roll our eyes at the insipid dialogue and flat characterization of Esther Summerson in "Bleak House."

The stories behind the stories of Dickens are fascinating. Dickens did not, for example, want to write the story for which he is best known, "A Christmas Carol," but he was (as ever) short of funds. Wilson explains the weird, quasi-Christian civil morality that infuses "A Christmas Carol" and other works of Dickens as well as explaining Dickens's own (sometimes weird) charitable endeavors.

Wilson surprises and shocks the reader with a bit of his own personal history in order to explain why Dickens has meant so much to him as a reader.

I enjoyed the book and the writing style and recommend it to readers like me who are into Victoriana and Dickens but neither a Dickens scholar nor interested in a lengthy biography. It is the best of Dickens, it is the worst of Dickens.

I received an advanced readers copy of this book from Netgalley and the publisher and was encouraged to submit a review.½

Description of the 75 year old who is sexually abusing, but also sexually satisfying—-finally—-the 47 year old main character’s new twenty-something squeeze, as “a magnificent stud of a man” will make this worth reading for a certain demographic. Otherwise, a psychologically unconvincing portrayal of mid-life crisis. Wilson’s day job as a journalist and writer of popular non-fiction is evident as he invariably tells you rather than shows you what is going on with his characters, all of whom are portrayed with easy condescension.

The author attempts to relate Jesus as a human person to his abilities to perform miracles. He says he doesn't believe Jesus is Lord, and works for 250 pages to prove his point. There is a lot in the book from the Pseudepigraphia and the Apocrphal Gospels of Thomas and others. While he does cite Josephus and Eusebius, the Bible he uses is the Catholic Jerusalem Bible. Most Protestants would stop reading this book after the first few chapters. Most Catholics would be outraged. I only finished it because I am a church librarian and need to know both sides of arguments.

A good, informative and entertaining audiobook on this colossus of a figure from the nineteenth-century.

Quite interesting but spoiled by Wilson's eccentric (to say the least) opinions which he presents as facts.

Oliver Gold, the brilliant, ascetic writer and philosopher, has lived quietly and happily for eight years on the outskirts of London as a lodger in 12 Wagner Rise. His sudden decision to marry and move to America precipitates a crisis in this household of women, all of whom owe fierce, idiosyncratic allegiance to Oliver and want to save him and their world from an unsuitable, inexplicable match. Yet in the end it is only Bobs, the twelve-year-old who is Oliver's constant companion, who knows his dangerous secret: it is from her that Oliver attempts to flee. In a series of dramatic tableaux, unfolding over the course of many years, A. N. Wilson threads the dark labyrinths of Wagner Rise and illuminates the tragic consequences of these attachments. With this provocative novel about forbidden love, Wilson has produced a stunning, haunting literary work-a Lolita for our times.