Noel Annan’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Noel_Annan,_Baron_Annan) biography of Leslie Stephen (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leslie_Stephen) justly won The James Tait Black Memorial prize in 1951. This is a fascinating insight into a complex and talented man, and also a window onto the pre-occupations of the Victorians. 448 in University of Chicago Press paperback edition ISBN 978-0226021065 Leslie Stephen
This is a very unconventional book — it’s nearly all dialogue, and the characters all seem to speak the same way, even the children. Sometimes what they say is nonsensical, and other times they come out with brilliant gems. The acerbic Compton-Burnett (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Compton-Burnett), who wrote 19 largely similar books, is not to everyone’s taste, although
Ken is a scientist, with a scientist’s dispassionate eye for the material world. He reviews his life from the difficult 1930s, through the slaughter of World War I, back to an idyllic boyhood in the Highlands. When the mature man finally reaches the source of the river that has haunted his imagination for so many
First published in 1957, Maurice Cranston’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Cranston) book is recognized as the definitive biography of John Locke (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/locke/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_locke). It provides that rare combination of sound scholarship, a wealth and variety of original source material, and a lively, compelling narrative. This is required reading for all those fascinated by the ideas of Empiricism and Liberalism.
Life of John Locke Read More »
Hortense Joseph arrives in London from Jamaica in 1948 with her life in her suitcase, her heart broken, her resolve intact. Her husband, Gilbert Joseph, returns from the war expecting to be received as a hero, but finds his status as a black man in Britain to be second class. His white landlady, Queenie, raised
Death is something that happens to other people: and hence, it might be inferred, the popularity of biography. Those whose lives are recorded die in the last chapter: the rest of us live for ever. The point was made by Lucretius in his long poem On the Nature of Things (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_rerum_natura), which was intended to
Dr Johnson & Mr Savage Read More »
The definitive scholarly biography of Charlotte Bronte (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlotte_Bront%C3%AB). Winifred Gerin (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winifred_Gerin) sticks as closely as possible to Charlotte Bronte’s own words, as found in her letters and other writings. A must read for all those captivated by the author of Jane Eyre (1847). 656 pages in Oxford paperback edition ISBN 978-0198811527 Charlotte Bronte
The long-awaited literary biography of the supreme ‘poets’ poet’. John Clare (1793-1864, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Clare) is the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self, but until now he has never been the subject of a comprehensive
John Clare: A Biography Read More »
In the winter of 1913, Edward Thomas’s (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Thomas_(poet)) life was drifting. He was a 34-year-old father of three stuck in an unsatisfying marriage. He had produced 20 books of biography and criticism, and more than 1,500 book reviews, most at high speed. Though The Times had described him as ‘the man with the keys to the Paradise
Now All Roads Lead to France Read More »
