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
applied days deputy editor heard job literary remember three work
I was working at the 'Evening Standard' when I heard that there was a job going as deputy literary editor on the 'New Statesman.' I remember thinking, 'That's perfect.' It was three days a week, and I had children, but I could make that work - so I applied for it and got it.
love normal people quite
I think it's quite normal for people to have love affairs.
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.
jane likely
I think it's about as likely Jane Austen was gay as that she was found out to be a man.
book despised english medieval saved
I was very priggish as a child. I saved up for a book on medieval English nunneries, for which I was despised by my friends.
people regularly since
I think people are always saying things are 'over.' Fiction has been regularly 'over' since the 19th century.
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.
children vulnerable fortune
Everybody is vulnerable through love of their children. Hostages to fortune.
people remember quiet
By the time I went up to Cambridge, I was extremely quiet and well behaved, although I now meet people who remember me as not like that at all.
self alive young
The young Dickens was so alive, so self-confident, so funny.
people closest written
All the people I have written about remain with me - perhaps they are my closest friends.
past two use
Biographers use historians more than historians use biographers, although there can be two-way traffic - e.g., the ever-growing production of biographies of women is helping to change the general picture of the past presented by historians.
tired successful years
As he approached his 28th birthday in February 1840, Dickens knew himself to be famous, successful and tired. He needed a rest, and he made up his mind to keep the year free of the pressure of producing monthly installments of yet another long novel.
school autumn college
I enjoyed the whole process of learning and was always happy when autumn came and school or college started up again.