Claire Tomalin
Claire Tomalin
Claire Tomalinis an English author and journalist, known for her biographies on Charles Dickens, Thomas Hardy, Samuel Pepys, Jane Austen, and Mary Wollstonecraft...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionAuthor
Date of Birth20 June 1933
later music nobody passages poetry prose radio tells time
'Words and Music' on Radio 3 is always a treat. Actors read passages of poetry and prose interspersed with music, and nobody tells you what it is. Later you can look it up online, but at the time you can't cheat.
charles
Writing Charles Dickens' biography is like writing five biographies.
adopt obliged writers
Writers often feel obliged to adopt some sort of public appearance.
directed good shut towards trying writers
Writers don't make good spouses. When I am writing, I'm not a good wife. I shut myself away, and all my emotions are directed towards what I'm trying to write.
I know it sounds pathetic, but I don't know who I am.
school
Because my father is French, my first school was the Lycee Francais de Londres in Kensington.
expressing few interest several songs time whose work
In 2007, several musicologists contacted me at about the same time, expressing interest in the work of the mysterious Muriel Herbert, a few of whose songs they had come across.
conditions everybody
In 1843, everybody was hungry, unemployed, and conditions were very bad.
forgotten life looked mary money notes rights small sold sum until
I had forgotten until I looked up old notes that I sold the film rights of my first book, a life of Mary Wollstonecraft: there was a lunch, a contract, a small sum of money, then nothing.
I didn't start writing my own books until I was 40.
choose curious experience human popular programmed
Why do we read biography? Why do we choose to write it? Because we are human beings, programmed to be curious about other human beings, and to experience something of their lives. This has always been so - look at the Bible, crammed with biographies, very popular reading.
dealing feeling god subject
When dealing with a subject who is dead, you have this feeling of being God. You know who they're going to marry, when they're going to die. It's strange to feel so omniscient.
greatest growing head interested life pleasure poetry time
Poetry was one of the things that interested me most as I was growing up. I used to write it in my head all the time. I still think the very greatest pleasure in life is to write a poem.
dench everybody flawless gave pleased thoroughly
'Philomena' was even better than I had expected. I was so pleased to see the evil Irish nuns thoroughly exposed, and I thought Judi Dench gave a flawless performance, as did everybody else.