London, Aug 4 : Noted English biographer and journalist Claire Tomalin is said to have turned her attention to yet another popular novelist of the Victorian era, Charles Dickens.

Tomalin, 76, who has already written biographies on Jane Austen, Thomas Hardy and Samuel Pepys, is seen by scholars to be "the ideal person" to chronicle the novelist's life.

Dickens enthusiasts already revere her for her 1990 account of his relationship with the young actress Ellen Ternan, for which she won the James Tait Black Memorial Prize.

"I have every expectation that Claire's biography will be a very substantial and interesting work," Times Online quoted Paul Schlicke, former president of the International Dickens Fellowship and the Dickens Society of America, as saying.

"She is known to be a major biographer. The book is certain to be well written, well researched and accurate. It will be most welcome," he said.

Tomalin has already made a name for herself with the biographies she has written, and her biography of the 17th-century diarist Samuel Pepys won her the Samuel Pepys Award and the 2002 Whitbread Book of the Year.

Lord Hattersley, who appeared in Charles Dickens's England, a recent film documentary, agrees that Tomalin should be the one to write the biography.

"I think Claire Tomalin is the ideal person [to write Dickens's biography]. This is very welcome," he said. (ANI)