The Critics: Books The Mystery of Charles Dickens AN Wilson Atlantic, 368pp, £17.99 The Mystery of Charles Dickens is a biography ready to take risks. He is after the darker things Dickens could conceive, and the question is how much of Dickens himself went into what appear distorted fantasy creatures moving about in the murk and preparing to injure others. Her daughter, Katey, found her mother with her bonnet on, sobbing in her room because Dickens had commanded her to visit Nelly to apologise for an accusation that Nelly was his mistress. The Mystery of Charles Dickens invites us to encounter a Dickens bent on feeling the pulse of that violence. [Extracted from the article]
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