Victorian literature professor and Dickens expert Michael Slater escorts the reader from 1848 Britain, when rumors first surfaced about an extramarital affair between beloved author and national treasure Charles Dickens and an actress named Ellen Ternan, through the reverberations the alleged misconduct caused all the way through to the twenty-first century! What actually happened? Opinions, investigations, and apparent cover-ups abound...from journalists, friends, family, and scholars alike. What an interesting study of the public's obsession with celebrity scandal. (CH)