Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World
Kindle
$12.99
Available instantly
Audible Logo Audiobook
$0.00
with membership trial
Hardcover
$4.99
Paperback
$16.00
Audible Logo Your audiobook is waiting!
Enjoy a free trial on us
$0.00
  • Click above for unlimited listening to select audiobooks, Audible Originals, and podcasts.
  • One credit a month to pick any title from our entire premium selection — yours to keep (you'll use your first credit now).
  • You will get an email reminder before your trial ends.
  • $14.95 a month after 30 days. Cancel online anytime.
Learn more about membership
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company
List Price: $20.25
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible’s Conditions Of Use and Amazon's Privacy Notice.
Sold and delivered by Audible, an Amazon company
Amazon book clubs early access
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club? Learn more
Amazon book clubs early access

Join or create book clubs

Choose books together

Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Explore Amazon Book Clubs

Charles Dickens and the Great Theatre of the World Audible Audiobook – Unabridged

Simon Callow (Author, Narrator), Random House Audio (Publisher)
4.5 4.5 out of 5 stars 160 ratings
See all formats and editions

Acclaimed actor and writer Simon Callow offers a fresh perspective on one of the greatest novelists in the English language, Charles Dickens, in this lively, colorful biography.

Dickens was one of the first true celebrity authors. Thousands of fans in Britain and America eagerly awaited each new installment of his stories, and flocked to see him on his legendary speaking tours. Not only did he create an incredible cast of characters on the page, but he was also a dazzling mimic and storyteller, and he wrote, stage-managed, and acted in plays for the public.

Throughout his life, from his childhood performances in pubs to his legendarily powerful reading tours, Dickens was fanatical about the stage. Callow reveals Dickens' genius on and off the page and offers a compelling insight into a life that was driven as much by performance and showmanship as by literature.

Previous page
  1. Listening Length
    11 hours and 4 minutes
  2. Author
    Simon Callow
  3. Narrator
    Simon Callow
  4. Audible release date
    August 7, 2012
  5. Language
    English
  6. Publisher
    Random House Audio
  7. ASIN
    B008U2PH9O
  8. Version
    Unabridged
  9. Program Type
    Audiobook
  10. See all details
Next page

Read & Listen

Switch between reading the Kindle book & listening to the Audible audiobook with Whispersync for Voice.
Get the Audible audiobook for the reduced price of $8.99 after you buy the Kindle book.

Product details

Listening Length 11 hours and 4 minutes
Author Simon Callow
Narrator Simon Callow
Whispersync for Voice Ready
Audible.com Release Date August 07, 2012
Publisher Random House Audio
Program Type Audiobook
Version Unabridged
Language English
ASIN B008U2PH9O
Best Sellers Rank #168,768 in Audible Books & Originals (See Top 100 in Audible Books & Originals)
#513 in Theatre Biographies
#618 in Biographies of Authors
#909 in Historical Biographies (Audible Books & Originals)

Customer reviews

4.5 out of 5 stars
4.5 out of 5
160 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

Anthony V. Loncich
5.0 out of 5 stars Well written and very approachable.
Reviewed in the United States on December 7, 2018
Verified Purchase
More about Charles Dickens than you thought possible to know. Written by a man of the theater, keen eyed, sympathetic but not maudlin, you learn a great deal about Dickens and the world around him, family and friends, co-equals and rivals. Very readable.
Helpful
 Report
Michael G. Edwards
5.0 out of 5 stars Dickens and theatre
Reviewed in the United States on October 22, 2012
Verified Purchase
For an old amateur actor who had read all of Dickens by the time he was 25, and who had admired Simon Callow for many years, this book was a great joy. It clarified my own inchoate musings about Dickens' love of performance, and made me go back to the originals so as to read them -aloud! The Callow book sits well with the stage performances of that other Dickens expert, Miriam Margolyes, seen recently in Hobart.
Helpful
 Report
Ismene
4.0 out of 5 stars What the Dickens!
Reviewed in the United States on March 20, 2014
Verified Purchase
I bought this book after hearing an interview with Ralph Fiennes about his film on Dickens. He suggested Simon Callow as an expert on the author, and he was right. Callow is knowledgeable about Dickens, theatre, and Victorian Life. The only reason this does not have five stars is that so much has already been written that there is not that much new to offer on
Charles Dickens. Callow does his own Dickens one-man show which is on DVD and quite wonderful!
2 people found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Humberto Lucero
5.0 out of 5 stars Very good book
Reviewed in the United States on August 2, 2018
Verified Purchase
Wonderul book, Dickens and his epoch come to life again, Callow writes a good portrait of the most Eglish author and his life
Helpful
 Report
Avery Gordon
5.0 out of 5 stars AND probably the best actor and director of Dickens' work
Reviewed in the United States on January 20, 2015
Verified Purchase
Simon Callow is one of the top Charles Dickens experts in the world, AND probably the best actor and director of Dickens' work. He, like Dickens, has a tremendous sense of humor, and reading this book was a pleasure from first page to last.
Helpful
 Report
Richard
5.0 out of 5 stars Five Stars
Reviewed in the United States on November 19, 2015
Verified Purchase
Simon Callow is an excellent writer, engaging and erudite. I'd recommend anything written by him.
Helpful
 Report
J. E. Ruppenthal
4.0 out of 5 stars The theatrical Dickens
Reviewed in the United States on August 9, 2013
Verified Purchase
Here we get a eminently readable, brief, but satisfying biography of Dickens, with a focus on his theatricality and his passion for the theater. After the exhaustive detail of Peter Ackroyd and the tedious pace of Michael Slater, Callow's Dickens is like an evening at the theater for a Dickens reading rather than reading Dickens
One person found this helpful
Helpful
 Report
Jeremy Henderson
5.0 out of 5 stars God bless 'I'm.
Reviewed in the United States on March 6, 2014
Verified Purchase
This is a such an entertaining read. Mr Callow is a truly great writer. I also bought the narrated version.
Helpful
 Report

Top reviews from other countries

Amazon Customer
5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic biography of England’s greatest author
Reviewed in Canada on July 14, 2021
Verified Purchase
A rip roaring extremely in-depth dissection of one of England’s greatest authors, by a man who is one of England’s greatest unsung talents.
Report
Susan Jane
5.0 out of 5 stars Witty, sensitive biography
Reviewed in Australia on August 12, 2018
Verified Purchase
Simon Callow’s Dickens biography is so good. He brings Dickens and his genius alive with clarity, wit and sympathy; plus all of those telling details that a good biographer pulls out of the hat.
Report
Lady Fancifull
5.0 out of 5 stars The writer who adored the theatre, by the actor who adores the writer
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 12, 2012
Verified Purchase
Simon Callow has written a wonderful biography of Dickens, with a specific focus on Dickens adoration of theatre, and the links between the passionate, flamboyant theatrical heart in his writing, and the man who virtually killed himself by addiction to giving all of that passionate heart to audiences, in the punishing Reading tours he gave, both in this country and in America.

I loved an earlier book by Callow,  My Life in Pieces , a collection of his published writings from newspaper columns, and remember particularly being struck by the way he wrote about Dickens, who he has clearly adored for ever. There is a pretty good fit between this larger than life, generously natured actor, and the larger than life, generously natured, and adored, writer, social campaigner and performer of Victorian England. I knew a little about Dickens the man (mainly, the details of his early life and the difficulties later in his marriage and his hidden liaison with Ellen Ternan), but the prodigious nature of his energy, and the extraordinarily wide scale of his talent - not just as novelist, but as editor, journalist, fosterer of younger writers, actor, monologuist/performer, director, producer, republican, radical, social campaigner and philanthropist in his life, not only his art, - has been revelatory. Dickens was adored by his public, transcending class, and was clearly a man who lived many lives in one, burning away with prodigious energy which must have been exhausting to keep up with. Emotionally highly volatile, he had close and loyal friendships with both men and women, although as someone with a keen business sense he also had some rather violent breakings of loyal friendships with his various publishers.

I was particularly interested in something slightly throwaway which Callow suggested, fairly early on, wondering, if Dickens had lived today, whether the particularly febrile quality of his energy, drive, imagination and passion, which lurked alongside deep despair, might not have led to the suspicion of mild bipolar disorder.

This is an excellently researched and written book, but it is Callow's warmth, appreciation and passion for Dickens which takes it out of the academic and ensures Dickens get placed not just in Callow's heart, but this reader's. And the life of the man, in Callow's book, definitely illuminates that man's art.
12 people found this helpful
 Report
Kev Partner
5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 2, 2012
Verified Purchase
Unlike other reviewers, I knew next to nothing about Dickens before reading this book. I was immediately caught up with Callow's excitement and passion for the man but, more than anything else, with the remarkable man that Dickens was.

Like most people, I only knew Dickens from his works - having studied a couple at school (A Tale of Two Cities making quite an impact) and, of course, from the innumerable TV adaptions. The genius of Simon Callow's book is that it helps the reader to understand how those stories came about and, above all, how he came up with his remarkable characters.

This is not an exercise in hero worshipping - Callow doesn't shy away from including, in some detail, Dickens's flaws but the overriding impression is of a fierce tornado of unquenchable energy that, in the end, burned out in service of his public.

Perhaps the greatest compliment I can give is that this book has left me fascinated by Dickens and also in awe of him - not only as an author but also as a force of nature. Much like Callow himself.

The only negative is that I was slightly annoyed to find that the Kindle price is actually greater than that of the hardback. The bonus, however, was that I was able to use the built in dictionary to illuminate some of the more obscure words used by Callow and Dickens himself.
7 people found this helpful
 Report
Ann Austin
4.0 out of 5 stars Haven't finished it yet, but it's very readable. ...
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on March 4, 2016
Verified Purchase
Haven't finished it yet, but it's very readable. Maybe he goes into a bit too much detail sometimes. Very theatrical style of writing. It is very interesting and I could imagine reading something else by him some time.
One person found this helpful
 Report