Charles Dickens and ‘Boz’ (his alter ego)

The story of Dickens's struggle to climb to world-fame and how he created an alter ego, Boz - and how he later had to contain and extinguish him

Dickens' rise to fame and his world-wide popularity were by no means inevitable. He started out with no clear career in mind, drifting in and out of the theatre, journalism and editing before finding unexpected success as a creative writer.

Taking account of everything known about Dickens's apprentice years, Robert Patten narrates the fierce struggle Dickens then had to create an alter ego, Boz, and later to contain and extinguish him.

His revision of Dickens' biography in the context of early-Victorian social and political history and print culture opens up a more unstable, yet more fascinating, portrait of Dickens.

The book tells the story of how Dickens created an authorial persona that highlighted certain attributes and concealed others about his life, talent and publications. This complicated narrative of struggle, determination, dead ends and new beginnings is as gripping as one of Dickens' own novels.

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About the book
Charles Dickens and 'Boz': The Birth of the Industrial-Age Author
By Robert L. Patten
Hardback, £50, 432 pages
Published on 17 May 2012

About the authors
Robert Patten was recently appointed the first fellow of the Dickens House Museum and is considered the leading scholar on Charles Dickens and his relationship with publishers. Patten is Lynette S. Autrey Professor in Humanities at Rice University.

Patten will be in London and availbale for interviews until June 2012.

Patten will be in conversation with John Sutherland at Waterstones Gower Street on Thursday 24th May, discussing Dickens's rise to fame, as part of Bloomsbury Season 2012.