Nelly gets her due
John Sutherland, 8 November 1990
The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens
by Claire Tomalin.
Viking, 317 pp., £16.99, October 1990,0 670 82787 8 Show More
by Claire Tomalin.
Viking, 317 pp., £16.99, October 1990,
The Autobiography of Margaret Oliphant
edited by Elisabeth Jay.
Oxford, 184 pp., £16.95, October 1990,0 19 818615 0 Show More
edited by Elisabeth Jay.
Oxford, 184 pp., £16.95, October 1990,
“... research Claire Tomalin draws – concludes that Dickens visited Nelly for elocution lessons. Peter Ackroyd has put an only slightly less pure interpretation on the connection: Dickens and Nelly enjoyed (or suffered) a ‘sexless’ marriage, in which she played out the part of the idealised virgin bride. An opposite line which traces itself back to ... ”