The Invisible Woman / Claire Tomalin

The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens. The 'invisible woman' of Claire Tomalin's book is the woman who, for the last thirteen years of Charles Dickens's life, was his secret obsession and intimate companion. Her name was Nelly Ternan; she was an actress, reared in a family of actresses and imbued with the traditions of the theatrical world; but within a few years of meeting Dickens she left the stage and disappeared from public view. Although she reappeared, she was always liable to become invisible again, sometimes by her own choice, sometimes at the insistence of those who, for one reason or another, preferred to keep her out of sight.