Literary Figures

This is the first major biography of V.S. Naipaul, Nobel Prize winner and one of the most compelling literary figures of the last fifty years. With great feeling for his formidable body of work, and exclusive access to his private papers and personal...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781612190907Author Kurt VonnegutFormat PaperbackPage Count 176Imprint Melville House PublishingPublisher Melville House PublishingWeight(grams) 175g

Dorothy L. Sayers was a woman of contrasts. A strong Christian, she had a baby - out of wedlock - by a man she did not love. Possessing a fierce intellect, she translated Dante, and also created one of the most popular fictional detectives ever in...

The letters between Vera Brittain, author of Testament of Youth, and Winifred Holtby, author of South Riding, tell the story of an extraordinary friendship'Touching and inspiring' RACHEL COOKE, Observer'Lively, perceptive' MIRANDA SEYMOUR, Literary...

An intimate yet frank biography of Gore Vidal, one of the most accomplished, visible and controversial American novelists and cultural figures of the past century. The product of thirty years of friendship and conversation, Jay Parini's biography probes...

Renowned for his endlessly quotable pronouncements, Oscar Wilde cut a dashing figure in late Victorian London ... until his tragic downfall resulting from an ill-judged libel action. We remember him not only for his famous trial and imprisonment, but...

Cynthia Griffin Wolff's brilliant literary biography of Emily Dickinson is the first to unravel the intricate relationship between her life and her poetry. It is a vivid portrait of the poet and her times as well as a fascinating interpretive study of...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780743274289Author Horatio ClareFormat PaperbackPage Count 288Imprint Scribner Book CompanyPublisher Scribner Book CompanyWeight(grams) 263gDimensions(mm)...

One of the most famous writers of all time, George Orwell's life played a huge part in his understanding of the world. A constant critic of power and authority, the roots of Animal Farm and Nineteen Eighty-Four began to grow in his formative years as a...

When British poet Amy Key was growing up, she envisioned a life shaped by love-and Joni Mitchell's album Blue was her inspiration. "Blue became part of my language of intimacy," she writes, recalling the dozens of times she played the record as a teen,...

This is the never-before-told story of George Orwell's first wife, Eileen, a woman who shaped, supported, and even saved the life of one of the twentieth century's greatest writers. In 1934, Eileen O'Shaughnessy's futuristic poem, 'End of the Century,...

In over forty books, in a career that spanned over sixty years, Larry McMurtry staked his claim as a superior chronicler of the American West, and as the Great Plains' keenest witness since Willa Cather and Wallace Stegner. Larry McMurtry: A Life traces...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781635574388Author V (formerly Eve Ensler)Format HardbackPage Count 128Imprint Bloomsbury Publishing USAPublisher Bloomsbury Publishing USAWeight(grams) 250g

Oxford held a special place in Evelyn Waugh's imagination. So formative were his Oxford years that the city never left him, appearing again and again in his novels in various forms. This book explores in rich visual detail the abiding importance of...

Explains Austen's methods, motivations, and morals The fun and easy way(r) to understand and enjoy Jane Austen Want to know more about Jane Austen? This friendly guide gives the scoop on her life, works, and lasting impact on our culture. It chronicles...

Emile Zola was the leader of the literary movement known as 'naturalism' and is one of the great figures of the novel. In his monumental Les Rougon-Macquart (1871-93), he explored the social and cultural landscape of the late nineteenth century in ways...

The definitive history of the flamboyant life of Ian Fleming and his most famous creation, James Bond.This new biography of Ian Fleming presents a fresh and illuminating portrayal of the iconic creator of James Bond. Oliver Buckton provides the first...

In this revealing 'psycho-geography', Dennis Marks makes a journey through the eastern borderlands of Europe to learn about the elusive writer Joseph Roth and the world in which he lived. The result is a riveting and involving documentary that reunites...

When it comes to death, is there ever a best case scenario? In this disarmingly witty book, Julian Barnes confronts our unending obsession with the end. He reflects on what it means to miss God, whether death can be good for our careers and why we...

From Dylan Thomas's eighteen straight whiskies to Sylvia Plath's desperate suicide in the gas oven of her Primrose Hill kitchen; from Chatterton's Pre-Raphaelite demise to Keats' death warrant in a smudge of arterial blood, the deaths of poets have often...

An elegant and accessible introduction to the life and works of one of England's greatest and most popular novelists"I want to salute Fiona Stafford's brilliant [book]. . . . It tells one all one needs to know about Jane Austen, and, best of all, leaves...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781905128150Author Geoff NicholsonFormat PaperbackPage Count 296Imprint Harbour Books (East) LtdPublisher Harbour Books (East) Ltd

"I am here alone for the first time in weeks," May Sarton begins this book, "to take up my 'real' life again at last. That is what is strange-that friends, even passionate love,are not my real life, unless there is time alone in which to explore what is...

'The moment I got my job at Virago in 1978 I knew it would be a long time before I would leave. I certainly wouldn't have had the brazen hope then-only twenty-five and very recently new to Britain-that I would ever become the Publisher, but I did know...

Born in Dublin in 1917 to politically active parents, Maeve Brennan's childhood in Ireland was moulded by the cultural ideologies of nationalism and lit by the creative energy of the Abbey and Gate theatres. She was seventeen when her father was...

William S. Burroughs Cutting Up the Century is the definitive book on Burroughs' overarching cut-up project and its relevance to the American twentieth century. Burroughs's Nova Trilogy (The Soft Machine, Nova Express, and The Ticket That Exploded)...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.AwardsShort-listed for Pulitzer Prize (Biography) 2018.Book InformationISBN 9780307744616Author Kay Redfield JamisonFormat PaperbackPage Count 560Imprint Vintage BooksPublisher...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780525659297Author Toni MorrisonFormat HardbackPage Count 144Imprint Alfred A. KnopfPublisher Alfred A. KnopfWeight(grams) 193gDimensions(mm) 173mm * 132mm...

Two seminal figures of the Beat movement, Allen Ginsberg and William S. Burroughs, discuss literary influences and personal history in a never-before-published three-day conversation following the release of the David Cronenberg film of Burroughs'...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781681376172Author Francois-Rene ChateaubriandFormat PaperbackPage Count 704Imprint NYRB ClassicsPublisher The New York Review of Books, Inc

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781905128334Author Richard IngramsFormat HardbackImprint Harbour Books (East) LtdPublisher Harbour Books (East) Ltd

This book collects, for the first time, Colm Toibin's critical essays on Henry James. Shortlisted for the Booker Prize for his novel about James's life, The Master, Toibin brilliantly analyzes James from a novelist's point of view. Known for his acuity...

'The book is a gem: fresh, intelligent and assured' Sunday Times Nancy Mitford was, in the words of her sister Lady Diana Mosley, 'very, very complex'. Her biographies and novels, her journalism, and the vast body of letters to her family, friends such...

Twenty years after the publication of his classic novel Ulverton, the acclaimed poet and novelist Adam Thorpe revisits the landscape which inspired him. Silbury Hill in Wiltshire has perplexed people for generations. Was it once an island, moated by...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9781578631384Author Susan Johnston GrafFormat PaperbackPage Count 240Imprint Red Wheel/WeiserPublisher Red Wheel/WeiserWeight(grams) 340g

One of France's most high-profile writers, Albert Camus experienced both public adulation and acrimonious rejection in a career cut short by a fatal car accident in 1960. From humble origins in a European family living in colonial Algeria, Camus...

Winner of the 2019 Somerset Maugham Award'A great galloping joy of a book - funny, lyrical, fast paced, heart-warming - a delicious celebration of love and life' - Rebecca Stott, author of In the Days of RainIn 1857, Elizabeth Gaskell set sail for Rome,...

'Your Majesty may find it extraordinary that I should answer with a shipment of fruit your letter of 6 August, in which you inform me that you are sending the plan for a treaty, and that of the 8 September, in which you are so good as to share with me...

Apologies but we at Booksplease don't have a full description for this book.Book InformationISBN 9780670094837Author Jairam RameshFormat HardbackPage Count 448Imprint PenguinPublisher Penguin Random House IndiaWeight(grams) 731gDimensions(mm) 230mm *...

This is the second volume of Vonnegut's autobiographical writings - a collage of his own life story, snipped up and stuck down alongside his views on everything from suicidal depression to the future of the planet and Andrew Lloyd Webber. Honest, dark,...