Secondhand Literary Biography Books

David Lodge's frank and illuminating memoir about the years where he found great success as a novelist and critic.Luck plays an important part in the careers of writers. In this...

Although his hilariously entertaining stories have touched the hearts of generations of children, there was much more to beloved author Roald Dahl than met the eye.His fascinating life began in...

The dramatic true story of the love affair between Russia's greatest poet, his wife and her lover, french hussar George d'Anthes - and the tragic duel that followed. Pushkin's Button...

'A classic of its kind.' William Boyd'Thought-provoking, hilarious, sardonic and scarily brilliant.' Scotsman'A work of dazzling craft.' Times Literary Supplement'A memoir in a million.' Sunday Times** Chosen as a Time...

'Screamingly funny and deliciously candid, full of wisdom and joie de vivre, this is memoir with the grip of a thriller' ERIN KELLY'A rollercoaster ride' THE TIMES'Fascinating and funny' SUNDAY...

Between 1948 and 1961, Ernest Hemingway and A. E. Hotchner traveled together from New York to Paris to Spain, fished the waters off Cuba, hunted in Idaho, ran with the...

A full-scale biography of naval administrator Samuel Pepys, who was well-known for being the friend of the famous and powerful. This text, which draws on Pepys' own personal diary, covers...

Poetess, fallen woman and wit, Laetitia Pilkington spent her life as close to fame as she was near to ruin. Favoured by, among others, the newly celebrated Jonathan Swift in...

An essentially private person, Siegfried Sassoon's work nevertheless constitutes a chorus of self-revelation. John Stuart Roberts has written the first full length biography of this complex man. A quintessential Edwardian...

Forty years ago Norman Jeffares published his first biography of W.B.Yeats, however since that time much new material has come to light, both written and illustrative. This volume is a...

Peeling the Onion is a searingly honest account of Grass' modest upbringing in Danzig, his time as a boy soldier fighting the Russians, and the writing of his masterpiece, The...

_______________'Kathy Watson has achieved the rare combination of sensitive, meticulous research with readability' - Virginia Rounding, Sunday Times'Careful, intelligent, absorbing ... Watson tells Mary's story in a sensible, matter-of-fact way,...

In the 1780s Elizabeth (Betsy) Sheridan, the younger sister of Richard Brinsley Sheridan, kept a journal which she sent as weekly letters to her older sister Alicia in Dublin. The...

In January 2014 I was informed that I had cancer.However, Quicksand is not a book about death and destruction, but about what it means to be human. I have undertaken...

A major new biography of Eugene O'Neill, the Nobel Prize-winning dramatist who revolutionized American theater"Restores balance to the slightly skewed twenty-first century reputation of America's greatest playwright. . . ....

Alistair Cooke, for 52 years the unmistakable voice of BBC's "Letter from America", was 90 in 1998. Drawing upon correspondence, private papers and the reminiscences of family and friends, this...

The authorised biography of one of the greatest storytellers of all time."Irresistible. I thought I knew quite a lot about Roald Dahl, but now I know much much more. Donald...

He grew up in a small town in New England in the 1950's, watching lassie, going to church, getting straight A's at school, a scholar destined for success. But he...

THE INSTANT SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER'Took my breath away . . . I sobbed and laughed and then sobbed again. I think it puts life into perspective but also, by being...

Mary Norris has spent more than three decades guarding The New Yorker's grand traditions of grammar and usage. Now she brings her vast experience and sharpened pencil to help the...

Entertaining, instructive, thought-provoking and hilarious, the unmistakeable voice of Deborah Devonshire rings out of this volume which combines her two collections of 'occasional' writings. The pieces are broad and eclectic...

A unique testimony to modern literature's most celebrated and enduring marriage.'I first saw Harold across a crowded room, but it was lunchtime, not some enchanted evening, and we did not...

In his first venture into non-fiction, the celebrated novelist Rupert Thomson has produced one of the most extraordinary and unforgettable memoirs of recent years. On a warm, sunny day in...

This book, to quote its author, is based on the twin premises that the 'oddballs, tinks, heidbangers, saints, keelies, nutters, philosophers, freaks and such like deserve to be drawn awhile...

The first of two volumes of the letters of Muriel Spark, one of the greatest and most fascinating writers of the twentieth century.*One of the TLS Books of the Year...