SOURCE: Mortimer, John. “Mystery of the Young Passenger.” Spectator 265, no. 8469 (3 November 1990): 40-1.

In the following review, Mortimer commends The Invisible Woman: The Story of Nelly Ternan and Charles Dickens as an engaging “work of literary detection.”

‘A lady who had been upon the stage from her earliest childhood. … once said to me, “Oh, but I have never forgotten the time. … when my baby brother died, and when my poor mother and I acted three nights … with the pretty creature lying upon the only bed in our lodging before we got the money to pay for its funeral.”’ When Dickens made this speech at a charitable banquet of the Theatrical Fund none of his listeners knew how close his association with the Ternan family was. Thomas Ternan, an Irish actor who achieved a good deal of success before he became insane, married Fanny Ternan, who had played Desdemona to...