Books on David Hockney, ranging from the classic David Hockney by David Hockney of 1976 to countless Hockney catalogues, are frequent reminders that he commands attention. What a one he is for switching focus and skewing perspectives – widescreen one year, iPad the next. What a demon he is for addictions such as smoking and […]
Of all the great and still celebrated seventeenth-century artists, Gian Lorenzo Bernini (1598–1680) is the only one to induce both a sporadic smirk and a shudder. Bernini’s best-known work, The Ecstasy of Saint Teresa (1645–52), provokes interest not so much because it is the prototype for overwhelming multimedia ‘total artworks’, but because the implausibly glamorous […]
Vincent Van Gogh is the biographer’s dream. The hauntingly expressive paintings and the tragic life from which they grew are illuminated throughout by the hundreds of vivid letters the artist wrote, describing in poignant detail the miseries, spiritual quest and occasional splendour of his footloose existence. Small wonder then that Van Gogh has attracted a […]
Literary biographers like to make large claims for the importance of their genre. If we are to understand a writer’s work, they tell us (with varying degrees of hysteria), we must first arrive at an understanding of the writer’s life, of what the writer is ‘really like’. Quests such as these are nearly always futile […]
Among the treasures in the British Library, one of the most unexpected is a collection of autographed manuscript scores that includes Mozart’s thematic catalogue of his own works. Donated in 1986, these formed part of the incredible hoard accumulated by Stefan Zweig throughout his life.
And how long, I asked myself, as the first volume of Professor Pierre Coustillas’s monumental life of George Gissing tumbled out of its Jiffy bag and fell with a smack upon the kitchen table, have I been waiting for this book? Twenty years? Twenty-five? In fact, it was first advertised in a Harvester Press catalogue […]
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
Twitter Feed
Juggling balls, dead birds, lottery tickets, hypochondriac journalists. All the makings of an excellent collection. Loved Camille Bordas’s One Sun Only in the latest @Lit_Review
Natalie Perman - Normal People
Natalie Perman: Normal People - One Sun Only by Camille Bordas
literaryreview.co.uk
Despite adopting a pseudonym, George Sand lived much of her life in public view.
Lucasta Miller asks whether Sand’s fame has obscured her work.
Lucasta Miller - Life, Work & Adoration
Lucasta Miller: Life, Work & Adoration - Becoming George: The Invention of George Sand by Fiona Sampson
literaryreview.co.uk
Thoroughly enjoyed reviewing Carol Chillington Rutter’s new biography of Henry Wotton for the latest issue of @Lit_Review
https://literaryreview.co.uk/rise-of-the-machinations