In 1868, Charles Dickens dispatches his youngest child to Australia. Like his brother Alfred before him, sixteen-year-old Edward is expected to learn to apply himself in what his father considers to be the new land of opportunity.
Posted to a remote sheep station in New South Wales, Edward discovers that Charles Dickens’ fame has reached even there, as has the gossip about his father’s scandalous liaison with an actress. Amid colonists, ex-convicts, local tribespeople and a handful of eligible young women, Edward strives to be his own man – and keep secret the fact that he’s read none of his father’s novels.
Conjuring up a life of sheep-droving, horse-racing and cricket tournaments in a community riven with tensions and prejudice, the story of Edward’s adventures also affords an intimate portrait of Dickens’ himself. This vivacious novel is classic Keneally: historical figures and events re-imagined with verve, humour and compassion.
(P)2020 Penguin Random House Australia Ltd
Posted to a remote sheep station in New South Wales, Edward discovers that Charles Dickens’ fame has reached even there, as has the gossip about his father’s scandalous liaison with an actress. Amid colonists, ex-convicts, local tribespeople and a handful of eligible young women, Edward strives to be his own man – and keep secret the fact that he’s read none of his father’s novels.
Conjuring up a life of sheep-droving, horse-racing and cricket tournaments in a community riven with tensions and prejudice, the story of Edward’s adventures also affords an intimate portrait of Dickens’ himself. This vivacious novel is classic Keneally: historical figures and events re-imagined with verve, humour and compassion.
(P)2020 Penguin Random House Australia Ltd
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Reviews
An engrossing and transporting read
An ingenious, hilarious novel . . . Keneally does what he does so well: he plucks people from the pages of history and gives them emotional lives
Keneally is a master at weaving historical figures and events into compelling works of fiction and so he does with his new book
Rewarding terrain for a much-loved novelist
A dashing, crisply written book
Tender and wry as the novel is, it has a tough-minded postcolonial core . . . Keneally's other life as a historian informs every page; his is an antique footnote swelled up to life-size
The Dickens Boy . . . is energetic, even exuberant. It is in love with the abundance of life it negotiates.
[A] genial, wry recreation of [Edward Dickens'] time in remote New South Wales
A bustling picaresque tale . . . there are some unforgettably vivid scenes in this rompy but emotive story of bruised youth.
[An] absorbing novel . . . Plorn himself is a joy
Keneally has brought off a notable double: a delightful and continuously interesting portrayal of mid-19th century life in the rolling sheep pastures of New South Wales and an acute and persuasive examination of the mystery that Charles Dickens still presents, and of the enduring fascination he exerts over us today.
A vibrant novel