Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World Paperback – August 7, 2012

More about Charles Dickens than you thought possible to know. Written by a man of the theater, keen eyed, sympathetic but not maudlin, you learn a great deal about Dickens and the world around him, family and friends, co-equals and rivals. Very readable.

For an old amateur actor who had read all of Dickens by the time he was 25, and who had admired Simon Callow for many years, this book was a great joy. It clarified my own inchoate musings about Dickens' love of performance, and made me go back to the originals so as to read them -aloud! The Callow book sits well with the stage performances of that other Dickens expert, Miriam Margolyes, seen recently in Hobart.

I was so very pleasantly surprised by this book. I was not expecting CHARLES DICKENS AND THE GREAT THEATRE OF THE WORLD to be as interesting and engaging as it was. And I was impressed by how good a writer actor Simon Callow is.I especially enjoyed the connection Simon Callow makes between Dickens’s life and his love of theatre and theatricals. The integration of theatre performances at his home and traveling shows gives such insight into Dickens as a writer and as a person. It's a unique and enjoyable connection Mr. Callow uses to get the reader into the mind of this great writer. Mr. Callow does such a nice job getting into the mind of this writer because he skillfully analyzes his work to get ideas about him as a person.An unexpected delight in this text was reading about Dickens’s exuberant friendships. He loved his close friends dearly. They were integral to this life. Especially notable was his friendship with John Forster to whom, Dickens writes, “I look back with unmingled pleasure to every link which each ensuing week has added to the chain of our attachment.” John Forster was a constant presence in Dickens’ life, and he is in this book as well.Quotes:• “He was learning to wear a mask, to conceal his inner life, to rise above his circumstances.”• “…he had learned, at an astonishingly early age, how to nourish his inner life, by observing and responding to the world around him.”• “Everything that had happened to him conspired to make him what he became; every last detail of it fed into his work.”• “…it is Ignorance and Want, the root causes, Dickens believed, of all the world’s malaise.”• “Dickens’s performances were triumphs of mind over matter: real acting is about mind in matter.”• “…in this brief life of ours, it is sad to do almost anything for the last time.”• “Literature was his wife, the theatre his mistress, and to the very end he was tempted to leave the one for the other.”• “It is one of the greatest of English Lives, both humbling and heart-warming, despite titanic flaws.”One of the great strengths of this text is that Mr. Callow uses lots of primary sources. It makes the book feel relevant, vital, and in the here and now. The people in this book are alive in the present in his capable hands. Consider this description of Dickens’s laugh (written by one of his friends) and you cannot help but adore the man’s zest for life and companionship. “Right to the end, it is Dickens’s laughter that people remembered: ‘not poor, thin, arid, ambiguous laughter, that is ashamed of itself, that moves one feature, only of the face’, his friend Helps wrote, ‘but the largest and heartiest kind, irradiating his whole countenance, and compelling you to participate in his immense enjoyment of it.’”In the text’s Forward Mr. Callow writes of Charles Dickens that he was “Human through and through, an inspiration and a bafflement.” Callow has successfully shown him to be just that in this wonderful book.

Simon Callow is one of the top Charles Dickens experts in the world, AND probably the best actor and director of Dickens' work. He, like Dickens, has a tremendous sense of humor, and reading this book was a pleasure from first page to last.

Wonderul book, Dickens and his epoch come to life again, Callow writes a good portrait of the most Eglish author and his life

Simon Callow is an excellent writer, engaging and erudite. I'd recommend anything written by him.

I bought this book after hearing an interview with Ralph Fiennes about his film on Dickens. He suggested Simon Callow as an expert on the author, and he was right. Callow is knowledgeable about Dickens, theatre, and Victorian Life. The only reason this does not have five stars is that so much has already been written that there is not that much new to offer onCharles Dickens. Callow does his own Dickens one-man show which is on DVD and quite wonderful!

This is a such an entertaining read. Mr Callow is a truly great writer. I also bought the narrated version.

A rip roaring extremely in-depth dissection of one of England’s greatest authors, by a man who is one of England’s greatest unsung talents.

Simon Callow’s Dickens biography is so good. He brings Dickens and his genius alive with clarity, wit and sympathy; plus all of those telling details that a good biographer pulls out of the hat.

I chose this book because it looked like an easier read than other biographies available, especially as I wasn't sure that I actually wanted to read a biography about Dickens. I thought it might be a bit dull. My goodness, how wrong I was! I can't recommend this book highly enough. For a start, if you don't know anything about Dickens, which I'm ashamed to say I didn't, prepare to be amazed and mesmerised (did you know for example that he was brilliant at putting people into trances? Maybe everyone knows this and it's just me who didn't! Once, he even put his wife into a trance by mistake!) I'm only half way through the book and had to stop to write this review as I feel I'm now on a mission to get everyone to read it! It might be a lighter read than other biogs, but it's fascinating, complex, funny, enthralling and more besides, full of incredible details about Dickens' extraordinary character and exploits. I can't ever remember a tv drama about Dickens, what a missed opportunity. I want to make the book last for weeks but can't put it down, so it may be a long night!

Unlike other reviewers, I knew next to nothing about Dickens before reading this book. I was immediately caught up with Callow's excitement and passion for the man but, more than anything else, with the remarkable man that Dickens was.Like most people, I only knew Dickens from his works - having studied a couple at school (A Tale of Two Cities making quite an impact) and, of course, from the innumerable TV adaptions. The genius of Simon Callow's book is that it helps the reader to understand how those stories came about and, above all, how he came up with his remarkable characters.This is not an exercise in hero worshipping - Callow doesn't shy away from including, in some detail, Dickens's flaws but the overriding impression is of a fierce tornado of unquenchable energy that, in the end, burned out in service of his public.Perhaps the greatest compliment I can give is that this book has left me fascinated by Dickens and also in awe of him - not only as an author but also as a force of nature. Much like Callow himself.The only negative is that I was slightly annoyed to find that the Kindle price is actually greater than that of the hardback. The bonus, however, was that I was able to use the built in dictionary to illuminate some of the more obscure words used by Callow and Dickens himself.

Haven't finished it yet, but it's very readable. Maybe he goes into a bit too much detail sometimes. Very theatrical style of writing. It is very interesting and I could imagine reading something else by him some time.