{Review} CATHERINE DICKENS: OUTSIDE THE MAGIC CIRCLE by Heera Datta

ASIN #: B00JLGRX7W

File Size: 954 KB

Page Count: 195

Copyright: April 9, 2014

Book Description:

(Taken from Amazon)

Outside the Magic Circle is part fiction and part fact; less fiction and more fact.

Charles Dickens married Catherine Hogarth on 2nd April, 1836, when he was an upcoming writer and reporter. Soon after marriage, he tasted spectacular success with The Pickwick Papers and in ten years, was the foremost writer of his time.

Catherine was the mother of his ten children, his hostess, she accompanied him on his American tour.

Yet, twenty-one years after they wed, Charles Dickens very publicly separated from her, denouncing her as an unfit mother and wife. He removed her from his home, his life, and the lives of his children. He never saw her again, not even when their son, Walter, died at the age of twenty-three in faraway India.

His allegations about his wife and his unhappy marriage were works of fiction, as successful and enduring as the rest of his works. The real cause of the separation was an eighteen-year-old actress, Ellen Ternan, who later became his mistress.

On her deathbed, Catherine gave her daughter letters Charles had written to her and said, “Give these to the British Museum, that the world may know he loved me once."

Outside the Magic Circle is a fictionalized account of Catherine’s life after she was plucked out of her familiar world and thrown to the wolves, as it were, by the exemplary Charles Dickens. It is told in her voice; sometimes reminiscing, at other times baffled, confused, hurt, angry. It has her tears, her love, and her quest for the meaning of her life, and marriage.

Lupe's Review:

Wow. This book made me despise a man that I once thought was fantastic. But at the same time, I could see why Catherine would put on that brave facade for her children. That she loved Charles so much as to not want to ruin him, the way he ruined her. She was definitely the stronger one. I think this was an interesting and vibrant take on the man behind the great classics, and his life, the real one, with his ever humble and supportive wife, even after he brought her down. Very well written and very well spoken. I enjoyed it, every page.


*An ecopy of this book was provided by the author in exchange for an honest review.