A review by kevin_shepherd
Charles Dickens: A Portrait in Letters by Charles Dickens

3.0

Charles Dickens was apparently the sort who liked to wield a full measure of control over his public image. Before he died in 1870, Dickens requested that every letter he had ever written to associates, friends, and family members be burned. Very few of his correspondents complied. Would you?! To date there are over 14,000 of his letters known to exist, with new ones still turning up from time to time. This collection represents a sampling of more than 30 of those letters, spanning a wide variety of situations and topics.

While a few of these are insightful treasures, others feel uncomfortably voyeuristic, bordering on an invasion of privacy. This may be entertaining but it is not exactly great literature. I came away feeling as though I had just read a bio published in the National Inquirer or the Daily Mirror.