ABSTRACT
Dickens was always intrigued by the form of autobiographical writing, although he never wrote a proper autobiography. He entrusted John Forster with the task of reporting the facts of his life as if his friend were, in Jean Ferguson Carr’s words, “a sort of surrogate autobiographer, who could serve as keeper with Dickens’s permission and guidance.”1 Indeed, the novelist’s difficulty in revealing himself was such as to have his only autobiographical piece-the well-known fragmentliterally encased within Forster’s biography, to the point that it merges into it, almost disappearing. To put it differently, this short piece of autobiography, in order to become visible at all, had to camouflage itself as biography. Conversely, Forster’s book, being so shaped by Dickens’s careful providing of information to his friend and biographer, could almost be seen as an autobiography.
