The definitive portrait of a literary master from one of our generation's foremost biographers.
Hilary Spurling is the author of numerous biographies, including Ivy When Young- The Early Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett 1884-1919; Paul Scott- A Life; a two-volume biography of Matisse, The Unknown Matisse and Matisse the Master (also published in the abridged single-volume Matisse- The Life); and Burying the Bones. She won the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize for Ivy When Young, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for Matisse the Master, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Burying the Bones. She grew up in Bristol and studied at the University of Oxford. From 1964 to 1970 she was Theatre Critic and Literary Editor of the Spectator, and since then she has been a regular book reviewer for the Observer and the Daily Telegraph. In 2016 she won the Biographers' Club Lifetime Achievement Award.
[An] excellent and vivid biography... exemplary and deliciously
readable
*The Guardian*
One of our generation's greatest biographers
*London Review Bookshop*
Meticulous... Where Spurling excels is in her punchy analyses of
his novels and her understanding of the writer's life
*The Financial Times*
Spurling has triumphed...A compelling portrait of a lost
Englishman
*The Observer*
This is a fine biography by a writer who knew Powell well, and who
understands how writers think
*The Spectator*
Witty, spirited, richly crowded with incident and character, and a
joy to read
*Prospect*
An accomplished biography of a great writer
*Tatler*
Spurling has brought him to humane and generous life
*The Daily Telegraph*
A sharp, graceful writer who has immersed herself in the
territory... wonderfully vivid
*The Mail on Sunday*
An accomplished biographer... her pen portraits are deft and
vivid... brisk and bold in her evaluation of a character or
retelling of an incident. Her comments on Powell's writing are
always illuminating
*The New Statesman*
Anyone feeling gloomy in their early 50s, worried they've been
leading rather a futile life for half a century, should read this
biography
*Daily Mail*
[A] superb biography... beautifully written, meticulously tracked.
Hilary Spurling shows a subtle understanding of her subject and his
work. She demonstrates an almost uncanny ability to portray the
huge cast of characters that floods in colourful profusion across
the stage. Her identification of the originals of the characters in
A Dance is masterly
*The Oldie*
An often surprising and always brilliant picture of English
upper-middle-class intellectual life in the mid-20th century:
drunkards, journalists, musicians, aristocrats, hangers-on and the
odd genius. I couldn't put it down
*Claire Tomalin*
An exciting story, from its unhappy beginnings to its triumphant
ending. You can't read this without your fingers itching to get at
his Dance novels, whether for the first or the 15th time
*Antonia Fraser*
Written with an elegance that does full credit to its subject
*Michael Howard*
Meticulous biography. Spurling excels "in her punchy analyses of
his novels and her understanding of the writer's life
*Financial Times Books of the Year*
Worth the wait; intimate and judicious, it doubles as an
alternative history of a lost kind of Englishness
*The Guardian*
So readable... wonderfully vivid portraits of Powell's famous
acquaintances
*The Mail on Sunday Books of the Year*
Richly and movingly enjoyable... a tapestry of Powell's
contemporaries
*The Times*
Publisher's description. A biography of the comic writer Anthony
Powell, author of the million-word masterpiece A Dance to the Music
of Time, from renowned British biographer Hilary Spurling. An
insightful and surprising look into what drove the writer widely
regarded as the English Proust.
*Penguin*
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
