'This is a brilliant book about the birth of modernism, one that taught me something on every page ... You will feel - and be! - much smarter after you read it' Edmund White

'The world broke in two in 1922 or thereabouts,' the American author Willa Cather once wrote. Yet for Virginia Woolf, T. S. Eliot, E. M. Forster and D. H. Lawrence, 1922 began with a frighteningly blank page. Eliot was in Switzerland recovering from a nervous breakdown. Forster was grappling with unrequited love. Woolf and Lawrence, meanwhile, were both in bed with the flu. Confronting illness, personal problems and the spectral ghost of World War I, all four felt literally at a loss for words.

As dismal as things seemed, 1922 turned out to be a year of outstanding creative renaissance for them all. By the end of the year Woolf had started Mrs Dalloway, Forster had returned to work on A Passage to India, Lawrence had written his heavily autobiographical novel Kangaroo, and Eliot had finished - and published to great acclaim - 'The Waste Land'.

Full of surprising insights and original research, Bill Goldstein's The World Broke in Two chronicles the intertwined lives and works of these four writers in a crucial year of change.

John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647 - 1680), has long been notorious as one of the most entertaining, extravagant and scandalous members of Charles II's court. He was also the most brilliant, witty and insightful satirist and lyric poet of his time, limited only by his early death caused by venereal disease and alcoholism. Passion for Living provides a full discussion of his life and writings, set in the context of his Times - the licentious court of Charles II and his mistresses, the Dutch wars and the so-called Popish Plot - together with close readings and analyses of his love lyrics, bawdy songs and shrewd satires, related to the life of his contemporaries, such as Thomas Hobbes, Samuel Butler and John Dryden. This informative and readable study will be of interest to both the general reader and the student.

An Irish Times and The i Book of 2022 'Tense and intimate . . . an education' - Geoff Dyer 'Enriching, sobering and at times heartrending. A wonder' - Sir Lenny Henry 'Authentic, fascinating and deeply moving' - Terry Waite __________ Can someone in prison be more free than someone outside? Would we ever be good if we never felt shame? What makes a person worthy of forgiveness? Andy West teaches philosophy in prisons. Every day he has conversations with people inside about their lives, discusses their ideas and feelings, and listens as they explore new ways to think about their situation. When Andy steps into a prison, he also confronts his inherited shame: his father, uncle and brother all spent time behind bars. While Andy has built a different life for himself, he still fears that their fate will also be his. As he discusses pressing questions of truth, identity and hope with his students, he searches for his own form of freedom too. Moving, sympathetic, wise and frequently funny, The Life Inside is an elegantly written and unforgettable memoir. Through a blend of storytelling and gentle philosophical questioning, it offers a new insight into our stretched justice system, our failing prisons and the complex lives being lived inside. __________ 'Inspiring' - The Observer 'Strives with humour and compassion to understand the phenomenon of prison' - Sydney Review of Books 'Expands both heart and mind' - Ciaran Thapar 'A fascinating and enlightening journey . . . A legitimate page-turner' - 3AM

The daughter of an aristocratic family, a wife, a devoted mother and a lover of women, Sappho was one of the greatest writers of her own or any age. Although most people have heard of Sappho, the story of her lost poems and the lives of ancient women they celebrate has never been told for a general audience. Philip Freeman paints a vivid picture of Sappho's world. He delves into religious rites, customs, the role of women in the family, medical knowledge and the experience of motherhood at the time. Through this contextual knowledge, a picture of Sappho's life emerges. Freeman uses his vast historical research, in conjunction with Sappho's poems and other Greek works of fiction, to bring us the closest we can come to knowing the biographical details of this most famous woman poet.

William Evans, the award-winning poet and cofounder of the popular culture website Black Nerd Problems, offers an emotionally vulnerable poetry collection exploring the themes of inheritances, dreams, and injuries that are passed down from one generation to the next and delving into the lived experience of a black man in the American suburbs today. In We Inherit What the Fires Left, award-winning poet William Evans embarks on a powerful new collection that explores the lived experience of race in the American suburbs and what dreams and injuries are passed from generation to generation. Fall under the spell of Evans's boldly intimate, wise, and emotionally candid voice in these urgent, electrifying poems. This eloquent collection explores not only what these inheritances are composed of, but what price the bearer must pay for such legacies, and the costly tolls exacted on both body and spirit. Evans writes searingly from the perspective of the marginalized, delivering an unflinching examination of what it is like to be a black man raising a daughter in predominantly white spaces, and the struggle to build a home and a future while carrying the weight of the past. However, in beautiful and quiet scenes of domesticity with his daughter or in thoughtful reflection within himself, Evans offers words of hope to readers, proving that resilience can ultimately bloom even in the face of prejudice. Readers of Ta-Nehisi Coates and Hanif Abdurraqib will find a brilliant, fresh new talent to add to their lists in William Evans.

'Make this your next inspirational read. Trust us, it's Oprah's Book Club worthy' Vice In London in 1958, a play by a 19-year-old redefined women's writing in Britain. It also began a movement that would change women's lives forever. The play was A Taste of Honey and the author, Shelagh Delaney, was the first in a succession of young women who wrote about their lives with an honesty that dazzled the world. They rebelled against sexism, inequality and prejudice and in doing so challenged the existing definitions of what writing and writers should be. Bypassing the London cultural elite, their work reached audiences of millions around the world, paved the way for profound social changes and laid the foundations of second-wave feminism. After Delaney came Edna O'Brien, Lynne Reid-Banks, Charlotte Bingham, Nell Dunn, Virginia Ironside and Margaret Forster; an extraordinarily disparate group who were united in their determination to shake the traditional concepts of womanhood in novels, films, television, essays and journalism. They were as angry as the Angry Young Men, but were also more constructive and proposed new ways to live and love in the future. They did not intend to become a literary movement but they did, inspiring other writers to follow. Not since the Brontes have a group of young women been so determined to tell the truth about what it is like to be a girl. In this biographical study, the acclaimed author, Celia Brayfield, tells their story for the first time.

The Unfinished Song of Francisco Urondo: When Poetry is Not Enough is a comprehensive, well-written, documented, and carefully developed study of the literary work and life of Francisco Urondo, an Argentine poet, intellectual, activist, cultural promoter, revolutionary, and clandestine guerilla member who died in 1976 fighting for a cause in which he believed, against the oppressive Argentine Military Junta. This methodical but never mechanistic work shows how life events, cultural milieu, political movements, and world circumstances interacted and impacted Urondo's temperament to produce his poetic voice, his prose, and his theatrical works. By studying the man, we get closer to his poetry. With his poetry, the author makes a compelling case for understanding the man. Francisco Urondo's life, work, and praxis were varied, agonizing at times, and always marked by imperatives. This book fills a significant lacuna in the scholarship on the work of this worthy, yet neglected and under-studied, writer. Readers of this book will come away with not only a deepened understanding of the man and his writings but also of a key period in recent Argentine political, social, and intellectual history.

This collection of seven essays, like the carefully linked collection of vignettes within Tim O'Brien's most popular book The Things They Carried, contains multiple critical and biographical angles with recurring threads of life events, themes, characters, creative techniques, and references to all of O'Brien's books. Grounded in through research, Herzog's work illustrates how O'Brien merges his life experiences with his creative production; he rarely misses an opportunity to introduce these critical life events into his writing.

Originally published in 1962, Virginia Woolf, provides a commentary on the literary work of Virginia Woolf - examining not only her the novels, but also the considerable body of criticism surrounding her work. Along with the essential biographical details of Woolf, the books recreates the atmosphere of 'the Bloomsbury Group' and gives us a valuable insight into a very rich period of English literature, involving such figures as Leslie Stephen, Leonard Woolf, Clive Bell, Desmond MacCarthy, Christopher Isherwood, David Garnett and others. The book provides a comprehensive account of Virginia Woolf's body of work and will be of interest to academics and students alike.

Originally published in 1990, Women of Bloomsbury takes a fresh look at the lives of Virginia Woolf, her sister Vanessa Bell, and Dora Carrington. Connected by more than bonds of friendship and artistic endeavour, the three women faced similar struggles. Juxtaposing their personal lives and their work, Mary Ann Caws shows us with feeling and clarity the pain women suffer in being artists and in finding - or creating - their sense of self. Relying on unpublished letters and diaries, as well as familiar texts, Caws give us a portrait of the female self in the act of creation.

Writers and alcohol have long been associated-for some, the association becomes unmanageable. Drawing on rare sources, this collection of brief biographies traces the lives of 13 well known literary drinkers, examining how their relationship with alcohol developed and how it affected their work, for better or worse. Focusing on examples like F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Charles Bukowski and Raymond Carver, the combined biographies present a study of the classic figure of the over-indulging author.

Existing accounts of Fielding's political ideas are insufficiently aware of the structure of politics in the first half of the eighteenth century, and of the ways in which Whig political ideology developed following the Revolution of 1688. This political biography explains and illustrates what 'being a Whig' meant to Fielding.

"The great virtue of McCormick's memoirs is their blunt honesty. He writes with a persuasive directness about what happened to him and what he believes..."--Arts and Letters The title of John McCormick's autobiographical book, may be taken both literally and symbolically. In a literal sense, going to sea was an early and powerful ambition, while seagoing is also a metaphor for the twists and turns in a rootless life, a long voyaging. This is not a conventional autobiography. It is personal only as necessary for continuity, and never confessional. The essays center upon telling episodes in the author's life and strive for objectivity and accuracy about the recent past, both personal and historical. He does so, as he writes, without "any pretension of producing a true history." The events of his life are necessarily unique to him, thus he finds uniqueness in the events that impinged upon him. McCormick begins with his early years, growing up in the American mid-West during the Depression, a time of broken family relations and random jobs. He relates his falling away from religious faith. He describes his first experience as a sailor in a tanker, which gave him physical liberation, a world free of constrictions, as with Hemingway. In discussing his early teaching experience, he gives a vivid portrayal of Germany in the immediate postwar years, along with observations of residual pro-Hitler sentiment and the awkward circumstances (for Germans) of the immediate past. He devotes a chapter to a moving memoir of his friend Francis Fergusson, eminent Rutgers University scholar. McCormick also relates his experience as an amateur bullfighter and reiterates his defense of bullfighting as an art. He paints a vivid picture of an adventure at sea while working on a definitive biography of George Santayana, reflecting also on changes in the genre of biography, with its prevailing emphasis on trivia and sensationalism. In describing his retirement to England, McCormick describes the conflict between nationalism and expatriation. He punctuates details of his naval war experiences with thoughtful observations on military combat. Finally, in his closing chapter, "Coda: Closet Space," McCormick attempts to make sense of old age and death. This autobiographical account of a well-lived life encompasses far more than a splendid teaching and literary career. It will provide insight and good reading for those who know McCormick's scholarly work, for students of the humanities, and for the general public interested in vivid prose. John McCormick is professor emeritus of comparative literature at Rutgers University, and honorary fellow of English and literature at the University of York. He is the author of George Santayana: A Biography, Catastrophe and Imagination, The Middle Distance, and Fiction as Knowledge.

Pronounced guilty of libel and sentenced to a year in prison, novelist Émile Zola went on the run.

Zola's crime had been to defend a wrongly convicted man, in what became known as the Dreyfus Affair. Fleeing the French state with just hours to spare he ended up living in the suburbs of south London unable to speak a word of English. Michael Rosen brings to life the sleepy world of late Victorian suburbia, Zola's turbulent politics and his tangled private life. Desperate to write a novel, he was also trying to balance the extremely delicate matter of the two women in his life - one the mother of his children, the other his wife.

The Disappearance of Émile Zola is the incredible true story of a writer's personal bravery in the face of the greatest political scandal of the age.

First published in 1968. Richard Hengist Horne, virtually unknown today, was one of the more extraordinary figures of the nineteenth century literary scene. The author of an epic poem Orion was acclaimed a work of genius by almost every English critic. His voluminous literary output is for the most part forgotten, but his life and character, his widely romantic aspirations to be a Man of Genius, provide a fascinating tragi-comic study. As a background study to the literature and society of the time, Ann Blainey's book is packed with interest and anecdote, and as a study of a remarkable man it is consistently entertaining.

This is a personal history of the twentieth century as seen through the eyes of Edith Kurzweil, author, teacher, editor of Partisan Review, and a recent recipient of the National Medal of Humanities. The book opens with Kurzweil early adolescence in Vienna during the Nazi takeover. It ends with the author finding herself in the new century. In between, she kept moving on and interrogating the world around her. The reader follows Kurzweil on her perilous journey, at the age of fourteen, to Belgium, through France, Spain, and Portugal, alone with her younger brother. Her fantasies of reunion with her parents in New York kept her going but came to naught: she had not expected to fall from a wealthy childhood into the life of the working-class poor, as a millinery apprentice or a diamond cutter. Instead of entering college life, she eventually became a conventional American housewife. Unhappy and anxious, she anticipated the social changes in America, and returned to Europe with her second husband and her two children. She arrived at the beginning of the Italian miracle--its post-war revitalization. In Milan she met many Americans as an active member of its community and of the British-American club. After personal tragedy she returned to New York, and only then pursued her early intellectual ambitions. The author eventually became a professor of sociology and quickly climbed up the academic ladder. Just as she had been as a little girl, she still "wanted to know everything," beginning with her study of Italian entrepreneurs and going on to European history and French thought, to psychoanalysis and anti-Semitism. Her early writings prompted William Phillips, co-founder and editor of Partisan Review, to invite her into the elite circle of New York intellectuals. She worked alongside him, first as a reader, then as executive editor, and took over the editorship of the legendary journal during its final period. Kurzweil's journey was one of courage, and of emotional and intellectual growth. Full Circle will be of interest to intellectual and cultural historians, literary and Holocaust scholars, and American studies specialists.

Homage to Catalonia remains one of the most famous accounts of the Spanish Civil War. With characteristic scrutiny, Orwell questions the actions and motives of all sides whilst retaining his firm beliefs in human courage and the need for radical social change.

Part of the Macmillan Collector’s Library; a series of stunning, clothbound, pocket sized classics with gold foiled edges and ribbon markers. These beautiful books make perfect gifts or a treat for any book lover. This edition is introduced by Helen Graham, a leading historian on the Spanish Civil War.

When George Orwell arrived in Spain in 1936, he signed up to fight with the Republican army against Fascism. Homage to Catalonia is his bracing personal account of his experiences in the Spanish Civil War. From the front line he describes, with brutal honesty, the frustrations and inefficiencies of battle; he is caught up in vicious street fighting in Barcelona and must flee for his life when Republican factions turn on each other.

The incredible autobiography from Claire Lorrimer, bestselling romance novelist and daughter of 'Queen of Romance' Denise Robins. You Never Know is former WAAF officer and bestselling novelist Claire Lorrimer's autobiography, containing a graphic description of the six years she spent doing vitally secret work as a WAAF in the Fighter Command Filter Rooms in World War Two. It is the fascinating story of a life overflowing with adventure, humour, tragedy, love, joy and disasters. Claire paints vivid images of her childhood when her mother, the famous author Denise Robins, entertained pre-and post-war literati at her weekend country house parties. Armed with an old typewriter, a vivid imagination and a passion for life, Claire started writing books during the war. She has had a remarkable career and You Never Know is the intriguing story of a long and extraordinary life.

On June 23rd, 1950, Pavese, Italy's greatest modern writer received the coveted Strega Award for his novel Among Women Only. On August 26th, in a small hotel in his home town of Turin, he took his own life. Shortly before his death, he methodically destroyed all his private papers. His diary is all that remains and for this the contemporary reader can be grateful. Contemporary speculation attributed this tragedy to either an unhappy love aff air with the American film star Constance Dawling or his growing disillusionment with the Italian Communist Party. His Diaries, however, reveal a man whose art was his only means of repressing the specter of suicide which had haunted him since childhood: an obsession that finally overwhelmed him. As John Taylor notes, he possessed something much more precious than a political theory: a natural sensitivity to the plight and dignity of common people, be they bums, priests, grape-pickers, gas station attendants, office workers, or anonymous girls picked up on the street (though to women, the author could--as he admitted--be as misogynous as he was affectionate). Bitter and incisive, This Business of Living, is both moving and painful to read and stands with James Joyce's Letters and Andre Gide's Journals as one of the great literary testaments of the twentieth century.

This study, a companion to Peter Macardle’s edition of the "Confabulationes," examines the ways in which the colloquies relate to their Cologne background, to the major contemporary colloquy collections (particularly Erasmus’s "Colloquia "and Mosellanus’s "Paedologia"), and to the humanist renewal of Classical Latin. It also looks in detail at the documentary traces of Schotten’s career, and of his networks of friendship and patronage, and tries to understand how he fitted into the structures of a university which has often been (wrongly) understood as hostile to humanism. Based on primary archival material, this is the only full-length study of this underrated German humanist’s life and work.

While Henry David Thoreau's travels to the Maine Woods and Cape Cod were well documented and have been followed by "Thoreauvians" for decades, his 1861 "journey west" with Horace Mann, Jr.--which took the duo from Massachusetts to Minnesota and back--was left to be veiled in mystery. This book details this, the last, longest, and least-known of Thoreau's excursions. The story of two 19th-century men and the 21st-century woman who was determined to follow their 4,000-mile path, this account will intrigue history buffs as they follow in the footsteps of a popular American writer and naturalist.

On the fiftieth anniversary of his death, C.S. Lewis was commemorated in Poets' Corner, Westminster Abbey, taking his place beside the greatest names in English literature. Oxford and Cambridge Universities, where Lewis taught, also held celebrations of his life. This volume gathers together addresses from those events into a single anthology. Rowan Williams and Alister McGrath assess Lewis's legacy in theology, Malcolm Guite addresses his integration of reason and imagination, William Lane Craig takes a philosophical perspective, while Lewis's successor as Professor of Medieval and Renaissance English, Helen Cooper, considers him as a critic. Others contribute their more personal and creative responses: Walter Hooper, Lewis's biographer, recalls their first meeting; there are poems, essays, a panel discussion, and even a report by the famous 'Mystery Worshipper' from the Ship of Fools website, along with a moving recollection by Royal Wedding composer Paul Mealor about how he set one of Lewis's poems to music. Containing theology, literary criticism, poetry, memoir, and much else, this volume reflects the breadth of Lewis's interests and the astonishing variety of his own output: a diverse and colourful commemoration of an extraordinary man.

Janet Morgan's definitive and authorised biography of Agatha Christie, with a new retrospective foreword by the author. Agatha Christie (1890-1976), the world's bestselling author, is a public institution. Her creations, Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple, have become fiction's most legendary sleuths and her ingenuity has captured the imagination of generations of readers. But although she lived to a great age and was prolific, she remained elusively shy and determinedly private. Given sole access to family papers and other protected material, Janet Morgan's definitive biography unravels Agatha Christie's life, work and relationships, creating a revealing and faithfully honest portrait. The book has delighted readers of Christie's detective stories for more than 30 years with its clear view of her career and personality, and this edition includes a new foreword by the author reflecting on the longevity of Agatha Christie's extraordinary success and popularity.

In the autumn of 1873, Wilkie Collins followed the example of fellow literary celebrities Dickens and Thackeray, and began a six-month reading tour of America. Hanes places this tour within the American lyceum movement of the later nineteenth century. Through close examination of personal letters, news accounts and newspaper reviews, she builds a picture of the relationship between Collins and the American reading public.

'Utterly, agonisingly compulsive ... a masterpiece' Liz Jensen, Guardian Following one woman's journey from a troubled girlhood in working-class Copenhagen through her struggle to live on her own terms, The Copenhagen Trilogy is a searingly honest, utterly immersive portrayal of love, friendship, art, ambition and the terrible lure of addiction, from one of Denmark's most celebrated twentieth-century writers. 'Sharp, tough and tender ... wrenching sadness and pitch-black comedy ... Ditlevsen can pivot from hilarity to heartbreak in a trice' Boyd Tonkin Spectator 'Astonishing, honest, entirely revealing and, in the end, devastating. Ditlevsen's trilogy is remarkable not only for its honesty and lyricism; these are books that journey deep into the darkest reaches of human experience and return, fatally wounded, but still eloquent' Observer 'The best books I have read this year. These volumes slip in like a stiletto and do their work once inside. Thrilling' New Statesman