With all due respect to Ms. Nayder and Mr. Sargent, none of this is news. As a longtime reader of Dickens, I've heard every bit of it before. It was just a couple of years ago, in fact, that Gaynor Arnold's thinly fictionalized version of the Dickenses' marital troubles was released to tremendous acclaim. Nor is Ms. Nayder the first to argue that Mrs. Dickens was treated unjustly.

I appreciate the effort that Ms. Nayder has made to unearth Mrs. Dickens's letters and research her life. But "controversy"? I sincerely doubt it.