Claire Tomalin
Claire Tomalin
Claire Tomalinis an English author and journalist, known for her biographies on Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Samuel Pepys, Jane Austen, and Mary Wollstonecraft...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth20 June 1933
critic glorious literary
I thought it was a glorious thing to be a critic and to be a literary editor, and one was really doing something that mattered: to keep up standards, to take books seriously.
life
I sometimes think that, since I started writing biographies, I've had more of a life in books than I have had in my real life.
afterwards break full state work
If I'm in a state about a book, I'll get up at 6 A.M. and write before breakfast, but usually I'll start afterwards and then work a full day with a break for lunch.
badly behaved economic hope life position power
I've behaved badly in my life. I hope I haven't behaved as badly as Dickens! In a way, if you're a woman, you're not in a position to behave as badly, because you don't have the economic power.
evidence signs
Biographers search for traces, for evidence of activity, for signs of movement, for letters, for diaries, for photographs.
certainly christmas works
'A Christmas Carol' has been described as the most perfect of Dickens's works and as a quintessential heart-warming story, and it is certainly the most popular.
history interested people present relate trying understand
I'm interested in history, in trying to relate the past to the present and to understand how people thought about their problems and pleasures.
conditions everybody
In 1843, everybody was hungry, unemployed, and conditions were very bad.
deny dickens fascinated record relation though
I have been fascinated by Dickens worshippers who strenuously deny that he did anything wrong in relation to his wife, even though the record is clear that he did.
jane likely
I think it's about as likely Jane Austen was gay as that she was found out to be a man.
belong good richmond society
I belong to the Richmond Concert Society, who put on very good concerts.
far films invent lives nature novels plots subjects whereas
Biographies are, in their nature, far more difficult to make into films than novels, because novels come with plots constructed and dialogue written, whereas I don't invent dialogue for my subjects or plot their lives for them.
kept quite realised
When I kept a diary, I realised that it was all moanings and depression, and I think that is quite common.
bad behaviour dickens faithfully love man present shock trying
When you live with Dickens for years, reading him and trying to present him as faithfully as you can, you can't fail to love the man - so the shock of his bad behaviour is considerable, even when you know it is coming.