Reviews

In 1995, two biographies of the British satirist and "man on the telly" were published in England: Richard Ingrams's Muggeridge and this title by Wolfe (originaly published by Hodder & Stoughton). Twice as long as Ingrams's book, Wolfe's goes beyond stories of happenings and personalities to probe Muggeridge's tortured interior life as revealed in his literary works, personal correspondence and unpublished diaries. If Wolfe sometimes plods through events and literary analyses, he grows more lyrical when discussing Muggeridge's faith, ethics and political philosophy. The cynical BBC journalist's celebrated conversion to Catholicism was not the personality change of a tired old man, Wolfe argues, but the culmination of a lifetime's struggle between fleshly obsessions and spiritual longings. Based as it is on extensive research, Wolfe's book is bound to become the definitive biography of Muggeridge. (June)