Claire Tomalin (born Claire Delavenay on 20 June 1933) is an English author and journalist, known for her biographies on Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Samuel Pepys, Jane Austen, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Read full biography of Claire Tomalin →
Dickens was a part of how the whole celebration of Christmas as we know it today emerged during the 19th century.
Dickens was very practical and sensible.
I always feel sad when I come to the end of a book.
I always try to travel light.
I belong to the Richmond Concert Society, who put on very good concerts.
I continually get more information about a subject after the book has been published.
I didn't start writing my own books until I was 40.
I know it sounds pathetic, but I don't know who I am.
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.
I think it's about as likely Jane Austen was gay as that she was found out to be a man.
I think it's quite normal for people to have love affairs.
I think people are always saying things are 'over.' Fiction has been regularly 'over' since the 19th century.
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.
Claire Tomalin (born Claire Delavenay on 20 June 1933) is an English author and journalist, known for her biographies on Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Samuel Pepys, Jane Austen, and Mary Wollstonecraft.