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Milton Place (Paperback)
Elisabeth de Waal; Preface by Victor De Waal; Afterword by Peter Stansky
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R519
Discovery Miles 5 190
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Ships in 9 - 15 working days
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An incisive demonstration of how Orwell's body of work was defined
by the four major conflicts that punctuated his life: World War I,
the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War. Few English
writers wielded a pen so sharply as George Orwell, the
quintessential political writer of the twentieth century. His
literary output at once responded to and sought to influence the
tumultuous times in which he lived-decades during which Europe and
eventually the entire world would be torn apart by war, while
ideologies like fascism, socialism, and communism changed the
stakes of global politics. In this study, Stanford historian and
lifelong Orwell scholar Peter Stansky incisively demonstrates how
Orwell's body of work was defined by the four major conflicts that
punctuated his life: World War I, the Spanish Civil War, World War
II, and the Cold War. Young Orwell came of age against the backdrop
of the First World War, and published his final book, Nineteen
Eighty-Four, nearly half a century later, at the outset of the Cold
War. The intervening three decades of Orwell's life were marked by
radical shifts in his personal politics: briefly a staunch
pacifist, he was finally a fully committed socialist following his
involvement in the Spanish Civil War. But just before the outbreak
of World War II, he had adopted a strong anti-pacifist position,
stating that to be a pacifist was equivalent to being pro-Fascist.
By carefully combing through Orwell's published works, notably "My
Country Right or Left," The Lion and the Unicorn, Animal Farm, and
his most dystopian and prescient novel Nineteen Eighty-Four,
Stansky teases apart Orwell's often paradoxical views on patriotism
and socialism. The Socialist Patriot is ultimately an attempt to
reconcile the apparent contradictions between Orwell's commitment
to socialist ideals and his sharp critique of totalitarianism by
demonstrating the centrality of his wartime experiences, giving
twenty-first century readers greater insight into the inner world
of one of the most influential writers of the modern age.
The novelist and short story writer Edward Upward (1903-2009) is
famous for being the unknown member of the W. H. Auden circle,
though was revered by his peers -- Auden, Day Lewis, Isherwood and
Spender -- for his intellect, high literary gifts and unswerving
political commitment. His lifelong friendship with Christopher
Isherwood was forged at school and university, with each regarding
the other as the first reader of his work. At Cambridge they
invented the bizarre village of Mortmere, which with its
combination of reality and fantasy had an important role in shaping
the dominant British literary culture of the 1930s. Upward,
immortalised as 'Allen Chalmers' in Isherwood's Lions and Shadows,
was an early influence on W. H. Auden and author of the influential
political novel Journey to the Border, published in 1938 by Leonard
and Virginia Woolf. But his writing career faltered while he was
devout member of the Communist Party. After leaving the party in
1948 he again wrote novels and short stories until shortly before
his death at the age of 105. In this illuminating, meticulously
researched biography Peter Stansky tells the fascinating story of
Upward's conflict between art and life. At the same time he
colourfully provides significant insight into English society
during the twentieth century and explores the special nature of
English radicalism.
For the first time, these two essential books on George Orwell have
been brought together under one cover. "The Unknown Orwell
describes the first thirty years of Orwell's life--his
childhood, the years at Eton and in Burma, and the struggles to
become a writer. "Orwell: The Transformation
carries us forward into the crucial years 1933 to 1937 in which
Eric Blair, minor novelist, became George Orwell, a powerful writer
with a view, a mission, and a message.
"Julian Bell" explores the life of a younger member, and sole poet,
of the Bloomsbury Group, the most important community of British
writers and intellectuals in the twentieth century, which includes
Virginia Woolf (Julian's aunt), E. M. Forster, the economist John
Maynard Keynes, and the art critic Roger Fry. This biography draws
upon the expanding archives on Bloomsbury to present Julian's life
more completely and more personally than has been done previously.
It is an intense and profound exploration of personal, sexual,
intellectual, political, and literary life in England between the
two world wars. Through Julian, the book provides important
insights on Virginia Woolf, his mother Vanessa Bell, and other
members of the Bloomsbury Group. Taking us from London to China to
Spain during its civil war, the book is also the ultimately
heartbreaking story of one young man's life.
Leonard Woolf: Bloomsbury Socialist is an invaluable biography of
an important if somewhat neglected figure in British cultural and
political life,whose significance has been overshadowed by that of
his wife, Virginia Woolf. His vital role in her life and career is
a central aspect of this incisive study. Born to a prosperous
middle-class Jewish family, he was profoundly affected by the early
death of his father, a prominent barrister and QC, which left his
family in reduced economic circumstances. Fred Leventhal and Peter
Stansky expertly reveal that, despite his youthful loss of
religious faith, being Jewish was as crucial in shaping Woolf's
ideas as the Hellenism he imbibed at St Paul's and Trinity College,
Cambridge. As an undergraduate member of the celebrated elite
Apostles-along with his close friends, Lytton Strachey and John
Maynard Keynes-he played a formative role in what later became the
Bloomsbury Group. He subsequently spent seven years as a colonial
servant in Ceylon, the background to his powerful novel, The
Village in the Jungle. Within a year of his return to England in
1911 he married Virginia Stephen, and in 1917 they founded the
Hogarth Press, an innovative and commercially successful publishing
house. In the course of his long life he wrote prolifically on
international relations, notably on the creation of the League of
Nations, on socialism, and on imperial policy, particularly in
Africa. Throughout this authoritative study,Leventhal and Stansky
illuminate the life, scope, and thought of this seminal figure in
twentieth-century British society.
Sir Philip Sassoon (1888-1939), a glamorous and well-known figure
in Britain for the first four decades of the twentieth century, was
the most eligible bachelor and the greatest host of his time. He
attained prominence in the art world, high society and politics. In
contrast, his sister Sybil (1894-1989) lived a more private life.
Yet she was fascinating in her own right, marrying into the
grandest level of the English aristocracy, restoring Houghton -
formerly the house of Sir Robert Walpole - to magnificence and
serving in the high command of the Women's Royal Naval Service
during both world wars. In this book, distinguished historian Peter
Stansky offers the intriguing findings of new archival research and
a generous collection of photographs to bring the Sassoons and
their period into sharp focus. He provides a full account of
Philip's election as the youngest Member of Parliament and his
service as military secretary to Douglas Haig during the First
World War and as parliamentary private secretary to Lloyd George
after the war. He follows Philip as he undertakes the building and
renovation of town and country houses, cultivates friendships in a
wide circle that includes the Royal Family, stages influential art
exhibitons and serves as patron to John Singer Sargent and other
artists. At the same time Philip was Under-Secretary of State for
Air and later First Commissioner of Works. The author also
considers Sybil's development from wealthy debutante to the
Marchioness of Cholmondeley, and her less celebrated but
nonetheless important patronage and conservation work. Using the
lives of the Sassoon siblings as a lens through which to view
English life, particularly in its highest reaches, Stansky offers
new insights into British attitudes toward power, old versus new
money, homosexuality, war, Jews, taste and style. Peter Stansky is
Frances and Charles Field Professor of History, Emeritus, Stanford
University, and is the author of many books on British cultural
history.
"On or about December 1910" human character changed, Virginia Woolf
remarked, and well she might have. The company she kept, the
Bloomsbury circle, took shape before the coming of World War I, and
would have a lasting impact on English society and culture after
the war. This book captures the dazzling world of Bloomsbury at the
end of an era, and on the eve of modernism. Peter Stansky depicts
the vanguard of a rising generation seizing its moment. He shows us
Woolf in that fateful year, in the midst of an emotional breakdown,
reaching a turning point with her first novel, The Voyage Out, and
E. M. Forster, already a success, offering Howards End and
acknowledging his passion for another man. Here are Roger Fry,
prominent art critic and connoisseur, remaking tradition with the
epochal exhibition "Manet and the Post-Impressionists"; Vanessa
Bell and Duncan Grant beginning their most interesting phase as
artists; Lytton Strachey signing the contract for his first book;
and John Maynard Keynes entering a significant new stage in his
illustrious career. Amid the glittering opulence and dismal
poverty, the swirl of Suffragists, anarchists, agitators, and
organizers, Stansky--drawing upon his historical and literary
skills--brings the intimate world of the Bloomsbury group to life.
Their lives, relationships, writings, and ideas entwine, casting
one member after another in sharp relief. Even their Dreadnought
Hoax, a trick played on the sacred institution of the navy, reveals
their boldness and esprit. The picture Stansky presents, with all
its drama and detail, encompasses the conflicts and sureties of a
changing world of politics, aesthetics, and character.
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