Girl in a Blue Dress

Girl in a Blue Dress
By Gaynor Arnold
Crown Publishers, 2008. 414 pgs. Historical Fiction

Before Dorothea “Dodo” Gibson even saw him, she heard Alfred Gibson’s laugh and smelled his lavender smell, falling in love with him immediately. He fell in love with her as well and after convincing her parents, they married. In a period of ten to fifteen years Dodo had borne Alfred several children and then he very publicly abandoned her, declaring her an unfit mother and a worse wife. In this novel inspired by the life and marriage of Charles Dickens, Arnold tells Dickens’ wife Catherine’s side of the story. Touched by the comment Catherine made about making her letters public “so the world may know that he loved me once,” Arnold constructs this well-written story of the Dickens’ life together and how their marriage dissolved. As Arnold tells Dodo’s story, she also offers an intriguing look at marriage and what each spouse has to give up in order to make it work.

MN