professor, and took up the precarious life of a man of letters. He found work reviewing for left-wing journals and embarked on biographical studies of the great figures of the English revolution, Cromwell, Vane, Pym, Hampden, Strafford. History, poetry, painting and the theatre all interested him, and he had a gift for making friends: with the essayist Charles Lamb; with Leigh Hunt, founding editor of the radical weekly the
Examiner
; with its current editor, Albany Fonblanque; with the novelist Bulwer and the young poet Browning, whose early work he reviewed; with Thomas Talfourd, radical barrister, playwright and MP; with the Irish artist Daniel Maclise, and the leading actor of the day, Macready. Lamb died in 1834; but all the others were introduced to Dickens by Forster during the first year of their friendship.
Forster had first noticed Dickens when he joined the
True Sun
in 1831 as drama critic, and saw one day, standing on the staircase at the office, ‘a young man of my own age whose keen animation of look would have arrested attention anywhere, and whose name, upon enquiry, I then heard for the first time’. 21 No words were exchanged, but Forster kept this bright image in his mind. In 1834 he settled himself in a room in a lodging house at No. 58 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where he remained for twenty years, during which he gradually expanded into more rooms on the same floor and above, filling each one with his growing collection of books. Here he entertained modestly, giving breakfast parties, but there was a loneliness at the heart of his life; he no longer had much in common with his own family, and Newcastle was far away. He fell in love with a remarkable woman of letters, the poet Letitia Landon. Beautiful, prolific and compared by her admirers to Byron, she earned her own living publishing novels and reviews as well as volumes of verse; and she was ten years older than Forster. He proposed to her and was accepted, only to learn that scandalous stories were circulating of her liaisons with various men, some of them his own friends. When he felt he must ask her about what he had heard, she broke off the engagement, declaring that his suspicions were ‘as dreadful as death’. Whether the stories were true or not, he was wounded and retreated into bachelor life. 22 The ethos of the time, and his own ambivalence about women, made intimacy with men altogether easier.
In 1835 he became the literary editor of the
Examiner
, and by the time he got to know Dickens he was a respected critic and becoming an influential figure in the London literary world. Dickens was a rising star whom Forster believed to be a genius, and was ready to serve that genius, while Dickens realized Forster could be an invaluable adviser and supporter. Each had something to gain from the friendship, but what counted still more was the strong spontaneous personal affection that rose up between them. They listened to one another, trusted one another and enjoyed one another’s company. Dickens loved to expand his domestic circle, and Forster became the essential bachelor friend of the family, more fun than Beard, although he also remained close. Forster was courteous and friendly to Catherine and she responded and approved of him. When they noticed that his birthday coincided with the Dickenses’ wedding anniversary, a ritual celebration was set up, involving a trip to Richmond for lunch at the Star and Garter on 2 April each year. And when the next Dickens child arrived, a little Mary, named inevitably for her dead aunt Mary Hogarth, Forster was invited to be her godfather.
This was one of those life-changing friendships that arises when two young men – or women – meet and each suddenly realizes a perfect soulmate has been found. The world changes for both, they are amazed at their good fortune, greedy for one another’s company, delighted by the wit, generosity, perception and brilliance that flashes between them. It is like falling in
Examiner
; with its current editor, Albany Fonblanque; with the novelist Bulwer and the young poet Browning, whose early work he reviewed; with Thomas Talfourd, radical barrister, playwright and MP; with the Irish artist Daniel Maclise, and the leading actor of the day, Macready. Lamb died in 1834; but all the others were introduced to Dickens by Forster during the first year of their friendship.
Forster had first noticed Dickens when he joined the
True Sun
in 1831 as drama critic, and saw one day, standing on the staircase at the office, ‘a young man of my own age whose keen animation of look would have arrested attention anywhere, and whose name, upon enquiry, I then heard for the first time’. 21 No words were exchanged, but Forster kept this bright image in his mind. In 1834 he settled himself in a room in a lodging house at No. 58 Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where he remained for twenty years, during which he gradually expanded into more rooms on the same floor and above, filling each one with his growing collection of books. Here he entertained modestly, giving breakfast parties, but there was a loneliness at the heart of his life; he no longer had much in common with his own family, and Newcastle was far away. He fell in love with a remarkable woman of letters, the poet Letitia Landon. Beautiful, prolific and compared by her admirers to Byron, she earned her own living publishing novels and reviews as well as volumes of verse; and she was ten years older than Forster. He proposed to her and was accepted, only to learn that scandalous stories were circulating of her liaisons with various men, some of them his own friends. When he felt he must ask her about what he had heard, she broke off the engagement, declaring that his suspicions were ‘as dreadful as death’. Whether the stories were true or not, he was wounded and retreated into bachelor life. 22 The ethos of the time, and his own ambivalence about women, made intimacy with men altogether easier.
In 1835 he became the literary editor of the
Examiner
, and by the time he got to know Dickens he was a respected critic and becoming an influential figure in the London literary world. Dickens was a rising star whom Forster believed to be a genius, and was ready to serve that genius, while Dickens realized Forster could be an invaluable adviser and supporter. Each had something to gain from the friendship, but what counted still more was the strong spontaneous personal affection that rose up between them. They listened to one another, trusted one another and enjoyed one another’s company. Dickens loved to expand his domestic circle, and Forster became the essential bachelor friend of the family, more fun than Beard, although he also remained close. Forster was courteous and friendly to Catherine and she responded and approved of him. When they noticed that his birthday coincided with the Dickenses’ wedding anniversary, a ritual celebration was set up, involving a trip to Richmond for lunch at the Star and Garter on 2 April each year. And when the next Dickens child arrived, a little Mary, named inevitably for her dead aunt Mary Hogarth, Forster was invited to be her godfather.
This was one of those life-changing friendships that arises when two young men – or women – meet and each suddenly realizes a perfect soulmate has been found. The world changes for both, they are amazed at their good fortune, greedy for one another’s company, delighted by the wit, generosity, perception and brilliance that flashes between them. It is like falling in
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