A review of The Invisible Woman by Claire Tomalin

For a focus on a woman linked to a famous man: One of the problems I have with books about women connected to famous men is that sometimes the author is really using the woman to write about the man. Although Dava Sobel’s Galileo’s Daughter: A Drama of Science, Faith, and Love (4th Estate, 2000) was fascinating in its delivery of the voice of an early 17th century woman through her letters, Sobel confessed she really wanted to have a fresh angle to write about Galileo. That killed it for me. However, The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens (Penguin, 1991) by Claire Tomalin, is up front about the balance of focus on both characters and achieves this. It seems incredible Dickens was able to keep his mistress a lifelong secret. But Tomalin is a fabulous sleuth and her later postscript, in the paperback version, makes a thrilling ending.

Available to buy at The Invisible Woman by Claire Tomalin | Waterstones