author
John Forster
1812–1876
A central figure in Victorian literary London, he is best remembered as Charles Dickens's close friend and first biographer. He was also a journalist, editor, and critic whose influence reached many of the leading writers of his day.
1 Audiobook
The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete
by John Forster
About the author
Born in Newcastle upon Tyne on April 2, 1812, John Forster built a career as a writer, journalist, editor, and biographer. He became an important presence in London's literary world, working with publications including The Examiner and moving in circles that included many major nineteenth-century authors.
Forster is most closely associated with Charles Dickens. Their long friendship gave him unusual insight into Dickens's life and work, and after Dickens died in 1870, Forster published The Life of Charles Dickens, the first full biography of the novelist. That book remains the work for which he is best known.
He also wrote on history and public life, including studies of seventeenth-century English statesmen and a biography of Sir John Eliot. Forster died in London on February 2, 1876, leaving behind a reputation not only as an author in his own right, but as one of the great literary friends, editors, and recorders of the Victorian age.