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  • Published: 25 March 2004
  • ISBN: 9780141937267
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352

The Invisible Woman

The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens





This is the story of someone who – almost – wasn’t there; who vanished into thin air. Her names, dates, family and experiences very nearly disappeared from the record for good …’ Claire Tomalin’s multi-award-winning story of the life of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens is a remarkable work of biography and historical revisionism. It not only returns the neglected actress to her rightful place in history, but provides a compelling and truthful portrait of the great Victorian novelist.

‘A biography of high scholarship and compelling detective work’ Melvyn Bragg, Independent.

  • Published: 25 March 2004
  • ISBN: 9780141937267
  • Imprint: Penguin eBooks
  • Format: EBook
  • Pages: 352

About the author

Claire Tomalin

Claire Tomalin was literary editor of the New Statesman then the Sunday Times before leaving to become a full-time writer. Her first book, The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft, won the Whitbread First Book Award, and she has since written a number of highly acclaimed and bestselling biographies. They include Jane Austen: A Life, The Invisible Woman, a definitive account of Dickens' relationship with the actress Ellen Ternan, which won three major literary awards, and Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self was Whitbread Book of the Year in 2002. In the highly acclaimed Charles Dickens: A Life, she presents a full-scale biography of our greatest novelist. She is married to the writer Michael Frayn.

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