Charles Dickens - An Authentic Account of his Life and Times - Martin Fido
Charles Dickens - An Authentic Account of his Life and Times
A Richly Illustrated Victorian Chronicle and Definitive Bibliographic Record of Literature's Greatest Novelist and Social Critic
Bibliographic Specifications
- Title: Charles Dickens - An Authentic Account of his Life and Times
- Author: Martin Fido
- Publisher: Hamlyn Publishing Group Ltd, London
- Publication Date: 1973
- ISBN-10: 0600369226
- ISBN-13: 9780600369226
- Edition Details: Stated First Edition.
- Binding: Original publisher's premium green buckram cloth-bound hardcover boards, complete with custom decorated endpapers and a non-price-clipped illustrated paper dust jacket.
- Physical Format: Quarto / Large Format (4to), 140 pages including an exhaustive analytical index. Heavily illustrated throughout with rare monochrome art reproductions, historical portraits, architectural maps, and nineteenth-century photography.
- Language: English
Official Condition Report
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The Book: Very Good (VG)
- Exterior / Boards: The original green buckram boards are clean, flat, and structurally sound. Displays standard light shelf wear concentrated along the extremities and corner tips consistent with careful handling. The binding remains perfectly tight and square.
- Interior: Pristine. Custom decorated endpapers are intact and flat. The internal pages are clean, bright, and completely unmarked. Entirely free of highlighting, customer signatures, library stamps, or folded page corners.
- Protective Preservation: Secured inside a custom-fitted premium archival cellophane cover to safeguard the buckram cloth and prevent future storage wear.
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The Dust Jacket: Very Good Minus (VG-)
- Condition details: Present, unclipped, clean, and crisp with exceptionally bright colors. Exhibits minor, limited edge wear and slight storage rubbing along the upper and lower jacket borders, completely consistent with a well-maintained 1970s vintage volume. Free of major missing pieces or heavy scuffing.
Synopsis & Historical Value
Published in 1973, Charles Dickens - An Authentic Account of his Life and Times delivers a beautifully synthesized look into the complex world of Charles John Huffam Dickens. Regarded universally as the greatest novelist of the Victorian era, Dickens transformed the landscape of English literature by creating some of the world's most enduring fictional characters while serving as a relentless social critic. Acclaimed true-crime and literary historian Martin Fido traces Dickens' journey from his traumatic childhood working in a London blacking factory to his global fame as a journalist, short story writer, and social reformer. Filled with over a hundred historical art reproductions and early photographs that map the dark, foggy streets of Victorian London, this scarce illustrated hardback functions as a key reference work for literature students, British historians, and dedicated antiquarian book collectors.
Author Profile: Martin Fido
Martin Fido (1939–2019) was a highly distinguished British author, true-crime historian, broadcaster, and academic. Educated at Balliol College, Oxford, Fido served as an English professor at Oxford University, Leeds, and the University of the West Indies before pivoting into historical authorship. Best known for his authoritative radio broadcasts and definitive true-crime research regarding Jack the Ripper and Victorian-era social history, his literary biographies—including works on Shakespeare, Oscar Wilde, and Dickens—are celebrated by collectors for combining scholarly accuracy with highly engaging narratives.
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