Adam Sisman
Poesy & Apostasy
Robert Southey: Entire Man of Letters
By W A Speck
Yale University Press 326pp £25 order from our bookshop
Almost everyone knows the name of Robert Southey, though few of us can recall a single line of his poetry. Much admired in his lifetime, he is now rarely read. He is remembered largely as the associate of William Wordsworth and Samuel Taylor Coleridge: a fact that would probably have astonished and certainly have enraged him.
He was born in 1774, the son of a Bristol linen-draper who would become bankrupt while Southey was still at school and died soon after. Much of his childhood was spent in the company of his Aunt Tyler, a wealthy spinster who insisted that he share her bed, remaining still
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
'Clayton’s book may be unusual in that she avoids the British biographical tradition of combining amateur psychoanalysis with elevated gossip. But it is perfect on its own terms.'
https://literaryreview.co.uk/she-carved-her-own-way
'Wilson’s target is less a straightforward biography than a sifting of Lawrence’s legacy for what remains urgent and alive, the aim being to shed its infernal baggage in search of an abiding paradise.'
@nemoloris on a new life of D H Lawrence.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/sex-was-a-mystery-to-him
'One of the gloomiest, most depressing and yet most gripping crime novels I have read in a long time.'
@NJCooper_crime reviews new books by @JaneCaseyAuthor, @FrankRGardner, @gregbuchanan, @AuthorSJBolton, @ajaychow, @adeleparks, @PGJonesVenice and more.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/may-2021-crime-round-up