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CLAIRE Tomalin, who has won a Whitbread for a previous biography of Samuel Pepys, turns her gaze onto British literature’s most famous novelist in Charles Dickens: A Life (Viking, €34). It’s a compelling read and does well to cover his life in 400 pages. Dickens was indefatigable: a radical journalist, agitator for social reform, actor, bon vivant and, of course, author. The most interesting stretches involve his personal life. He had 10 children with his wife, whom he grew to despise because of her lack of conviviality and for the “imbecility” of the genes she passed on to many of their children. He eventually left her for an 18-year-old actress, but, as Victorian England’s great champion of domestic happiness, it was a relationship he kept secret.

Memoir