SOURCE: Busch, Frederick. “Lives Acted Out in Secrecy: How and Why Nelly Ternan Became the Mistress of Charles Dickens.” Chicago Tribune Books (31 March 1991): 4.

In the following review, Busch praises Tomalin's skill at constructing a biographical portrait in The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens.

The story of Ellen Lawless Ternan is quiet, fascinating, poignant—and minor. Yet it probably matters more, in the immensities of history, than your story or mine. For Nelly, as she was called, can be seen as something of a source for Charles Dickens' Estella in “Great Expectations,” his Bella Wilfer in “Our Mutual Friend” and his Helena Landless in “The Mystery of Edwin Drood.” She may well have been pregnant twice by Dickens, and she surely was his mistress for 13 years.

Dickens shared the secret of their relationship only with those he needed to trust. While there were, inevitably...