In November 1997, a slight book sewn together with string was discovered in a palazzo in Italy. This was Maurice, the only children's story ever penned by Mary Shelley. Written two years after Frankenstein, Maurice is often read as a gloss of Shelley's personal family tragedies, bearing the same melancholy that distinguishes all of her works. As Claire Tomalin shows in her compelling introduction, it contributes greatly to the literary and biographical scholarship on this fascinating woman who was a significant writer in her own right as well as the wife of one of the...

Claire Tomalin paints an unforgettable portrait of Dickens, capturing brilliantly the complex character of this great genius.

Claire Tomalin's story of the life of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens returns the neglected actress to her rightful place in history as well as providing a compelling and truthful portrait of the great Victorian novelist.

A full-scale biography of naval administrator Samuel Pepys, who was well-known for being the friend of the famous and powerful. This text, which draws on Pepys' own personal diary, covers his childhood and young adulthood. It goes beyond the source material to explore the inner man.

Jane Austen is the definitive biography of one of Britain's best-loved novelists, from the acclaimed author of Samuel Pepys: The Unequalled Self, Charles Dickens: A Life and The Invisible Woman 'As near perfect a life of Austen as we are likely to get: intelligent, feeling, suggestive' Carmen Callil, Daily Telegraph 'Tomalin has written a biography that reflects Austen's own exacting standards, a book that radiates intelligence, wit and insight' Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times 'Of all the Austen biographies, this is the best ... leaves the reader with a much deeper appreciation of the...

This biography covers Hardy's rural upbringing, his escape to London in the 1860s, his marriages, his status as a best-selling novelist, and in later life, his supreme achievements as a poet.

Sexually ambiguous, craving love yet quarrelsome and capricious, Katherine Mansfield glittered in the circles of D.H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf and became, after her death, one of the most influential writers of the twentieth century. This reissue gives a fine portrait of the woman.

Witty, courageous and unconventional, Mary Wollstonecraft was one of the most controversial figures of her day. She published 'A Vindication of the Rights of Woman'; and travelled to revolutionary France and lived through the Terror and the destruction of the incipient French feminist movement.