The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens

by Claire Tomalin

Charles Dickens and Nelly Ternan met in 1857; she was 18, a hard-working actress performing in his production of The Frozen Deep, and he was 45, the most lionized writer in England. Out of their meeting came a love affair that lasted thirteen years and destroyed Dickens’s marriage while effacing Nelly Ternan from the public record.
 
In this remarkable work of biography and scholarly reconstruction, the acclaimed biographer of Mary Wollstonecraft, Thomas Hardy, Samuel Pepys and Jane Austen rescues Nelly from the shadows of history, not only returning the neglected actress to her rightful place, but also providing a compelling portrait of the great Victorian novelist himself. The result is a thrilling literary detective story and a deeply compassionate work that encompasses all those women who were exiled from the warm, well-lighted parlors of Victorian England.

• ISBN10: 0345803973
• ISBN13: 9780345803979
• Publish Date: 30 October 2012 (first published 20 March 1991)
• Publish Status: Inactive
• Out of Print: 22 January 2025
• Publish Country: US
• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Imprint: Vintage Books
• Edition: 2nd ed.
• Format: Paperback (US Trade)
• Pages: 384
• Language: English
• URL: https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/isbn/9780345803979

Reviews

[wyvernfriend]

Quite an interesting read about a woman who has been largely written out of Dicken's life. A woman who may or may not have been his mistress but with the secrecy surrounding her and her relationship with Dicken, and from the belief of many of the people around her (including at least one of Dicken's children) was.

This is an interesting account of her life and the way she was written out of the story. You can see the frustration of the author as she tries to link some details together but fail because of the lack of evidence, evidence that was burnt or destroyed.

Nelly Ternan was an actress, from a family of actresses and lived on the fringes of society. When she and Dickens met (and there is evidence that they did act together, in playbills etc) her life changed, along with the life of her family. The jury is still out whether it was all a good or bad thing.