The Dickens Boy

A new historical novel from Booker Prize winner Keneally (Schindler’s List). At the tender age of 16, Edward Bulwer-Lytton Dickens (nicknamed Plorn), the youngest son of Charles Dickens, is sent to Australia to make something of himself. A poor scholar whose only training for this posting was a short stint in agricultural school, Plorn is secretly ashamed that he has not read any of his father’s work. So it causes no end of embarrassment that wherever he goes in the remotest outback, he’s treated as minor royalty and his father’s words are quoted back to him. To earn his father’s respect, Plorn applies himself diligently to the business of sheep farming under the enlightened tutelage of the Bonney brothers. But Plorn’s pride in his accomplishments is undermined by his older brother Alfred, who had already been stationed in Australia and questions their father’s motives in sending them to the convict colony.