Jerrold Northrop Moore pursues his quest for the essential Elgar and sets out the story of an extraordinarily creative life. It shows themes of childhood, fantasy and vision fusing into a mature style of nobility and nostalgia. Above all it links the composer to the English landscape that formed the backdrop to all of his work, from his earliest years. This powerful short book is the outcome of half a century's thought and reflection by a leading Elgar biographer.

Edward Elgar (1857-1934) is among the greatest of all English composers, and this major biography, the culmination of twenty years' work, is probably the most complete and perceptive study of the composer to date. Drawing on the vast amount of source material, much of it previously unpublished, Jerrold Northrop Moore presents Elgar's life and works as inseparable parts of a single creative career. This classic study, for many years unavailable, is here reissued as a Clarendon Paperback.