A vivid portrait of a complex man approached through twelve books, including his mother's diary and Lolita. Beguiling and intriguing, he did not shun controversy.
A compelling personal introduction to the life and work of the Nobel Prize-winning Polish writer Czeslaw Milosz by his compatriot and fellow exile Eva Hoffman. The predominant themes here ar... read more
Not Sonia but his first wife, Eileen O'Shaughnessy, who was with him during the Spanish Civil War and WW2. A wonderful portrayal of this remarkable literary marriage by the author of Stasila... read more
His last book Time of the Magicians was a group biography of Benjamin, Wittgenstein, Heidegger and Cassirer. Here, he looks at four women who created new ways of thinking in the aftermath of... read more
Enayat al-Zayyat was a young Egyptian woman whose only novel was published posthumously in 1967. Here, one of Egypt's foremost poets creates a portrait not only of Enayat but of literary an... read more
The great historian of late antiquity mixes the personal with the scholarly in telling the story of his life and work. Engagement with the non-European world has been intrinsic to his work.
Please note that this hardback - which was published on a limited print run - is now out of print. There might be a reissue in paperback; please email us to put your name down.
The Marchi... read more
Published last year in the US, this account of the rich in mid-C20th New York, and Capote's multiple betrayals of friendships, is both fascinating and shocking.
The daughter of Russian immigrants in Leeds, Simpson made it her life's mission to help academic refugees. During WW2 alone, she saved 16 future Nobel Prize winners, 74 future Fellows of the... read more
So many of K-S's photographs have been misattributed to Cecil Beaton that she has been neglected. She was admired by Man Ray and Paul Nash; her circle included Cocteau, Connolly and Fonteyn.
It's un-British to doubt the Bard these days: historical truth and myth-making catch the light in this scintillating study of our attitudes towards our unifying national treasure.
The author fled Iraq with his family to Israel in 1950: this personal narrative of emigration also contends with the repercussions of Zionism for an Arab-Jew.
The subject is the author's grandmother, an editor at the Hogarth Press who was close to Yeats, dallied on the fringes of Bloomsbury and left her husband the Duke of Wellington for Vita Sack... read more
A new edition in 5 vols, with introductions by Virginia Nicholson, Adam Phillips, Olivia Laing, Margo Jefferson and Siri Hustvedt. £150 or £30 per vol:
Volume 1
Volume 2
Volume 3
Vol... read more
Following his outstanding book 1913: The Year Before the Storm, , Illies looks at the affairs of de Beauvoir, Sartre, Dietrich, Mann (both T & K), Nabokov and others, set against the looming... read more
A joyous and detailed biography of this extraordinary man, whose house in Cambridge is still a sanctuary for the artistically-inclined. His circle included Ben and Winifred Nicholson, Henry... read more
Borman's careful research shows that Anne's tragedy, intellect and family had a profound influence on Elizabeth throughout her life. A dazzling turn of the Tudor prism.
Do the pram in the hall and other domestic tentacles make a life of intellectual fulfilment impossible? The author unravels the work of Virginia Woolf, Simone de Beauvoir, Elena Ferrante, Zo... read more