This skilful, moving jeu d'esprit could just as well be in the fiction section. It's about both the poet and the author's preoccupation with him, and contains as much fiction as fact. If you... read more
An incisive post-mortem on the state of the Victorian union, told (with a gossipy thrill) through the lives of five couples - Thomas Carlyle and Jane Welsh, John Ruskin and Effie Gray, Charl... 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
Marius is the distinguished antiquarian bookseller who features in the work of Javier Marias and worked for Bernard Stone and Peter Ellis; also a wide-ranging writer, most recently on Naples... read more
A vivid novel about Edith Somerville, co-author of the Irish R.M., set against the backdrop of burnings, politics and lawlessness of Ireland in the early 1920s.
Most lives are untidy, and mine is no exception... She made herself a success in Fleet Street when journalism was still a very male domain, edited Elizabeth David and inspired the look - if ... read more
Beautifully written and sensitive to his subject, this is a moving novel about Lampedusa, his remarkable wife Alexandra von Wolff-Stomersee, and the writing of 'The Leopard'.
"A lesser life does not seem lesser to the person who leads one" ...Diane Johnson's sensitive, witty and and intelligent biography of Mary Ellen Peacock Meredith (1821-1861), the well-educat... read more
A novel about the harrowing life of the great Russian poetess. She was involved with both Pasternak and Rilke; her daughter died in the Moscow famine; her husband was executed; and she herse... read more
A year into university and wrestling with religion, Tóibín discovered Baldwin. These essays on freedom, truth and the hidden are wonderfully perceptive and articulate.
Thirteen essays by the Northcliffe Professor of English at UCL. An entertaining guide that looks at Dickens's choice of names, use of outrageous coincidence, and why he works best when read ... read more
Uncovers the illicit affair between the novelist and the author's grandfather, Humphry House, which Parry discovered on being delivered a box of letters.
Today's pre-eminent author for children is a Fellow of All Souls. Now she turns her scholarly attention to the religious outsider, social disaster, celebrity preacher, establishment darling,... read more
Born in Victorian Sydney, she was presented at Court to Queen Victoria and then married a Prussian count. The marriage was unhappy, and her subsequent marriage to Bertrand Russell's brother ... read more
The subject's death released the official biographer from the prohibition against writing about Le Carr?'s private life. Hence this second book from Sisman. Not to be confused with Suleika D... read more
For his first 36 years, Hölderlin engaged with the world. The second half of his life - the subject of this book, by the celebrated European philosopher - was spent as a 'madman' in the hom... read more
She was the only writer towards whom Virginia Woolf acknowledged jealousy. Harman is the distinguished biographer of Sylvia Townsend Warner, Fanny Burney and others.
A skilful, moving ‘jeu d’esprit‘ turns about the life of the poet, the nature of his work, and the author’s preoccupation with him over several decades. It contains as much fiction a... read more
The story of the son of a Parsi-convert vicar near Birmingham who, convicted for mutilating horses and writing threatening letters to the vicar, contacted Conan Doyle to unravel the mystery ... read more
The title is part of her 1947 New Year's Eve toast. Openly gay, Highsmith was famously beastly to lovers and friends. This new biography traces connections between her complex character and ... read more