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Forlorn Plorn: The Dickens Boy, by Thomas Keneally, reviewed

5 September 2020

9:00 AM

5 September 2020

9:00 AM

The Dickens Boy Thomas Keneally

Sceptre, pp.400, 20

Parents are always terrified of bad family history repeating itself. Prince Albert dreaded his son Bertie turning into a roué like his own father, and this of course happened. Charles Dickens had fantasised in David Copperfield that the jokey version of his own father — Mr Micawber — would become a success in life by going to Australia.

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