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This new collection of stories offers a candid peek at infidelity in all its guises. These are tales of lust, deceit, resentment and regret - and of the secrets and lies that can chip away at human relationships.In a series of interwoven dramas, we find mothers yearning for adventure, for the exhilaration of the open road or the anonymity of the forest; fathers absent in body or mind; husbands who look the other way; complacency turned to spite and apathy turned to betrayal. At the same time Gunn pursues the glorious rush of a snap decision, the liberty of answering that siren call of a better life elsewhere.Written with Gunn's trademark attention to nuances of behaviour, motive and even landscape, Infidelity is a temptingly beautiful work that asks 'What if?' and dares to find out.

Meet Martha. It's the first day of her new job as intern at Edinburgh'sThe Standard. But all's not well at the ailing newspaper, and Martha is carrying some serious baggage of her own.Put straight onto the obituary page, she takes a call from a former employee who seems to commit suicide while on the phone, something which echoes with her own troubled past.Setting in motion a frantic race around modern-day Edinburgh,The Dead Beat traces Martha's desperate search for answers to the dark mystery of her parents' past. Soundtracked by and interspersed with a series of gigs from the alternative music scene of her parents' generation in the early '90s, Doug Johnstone's latest page-turner is a wild ride of a thriller, and a perfect follow-on to his #1 Kindle bestseller, Hit & Run.

R. F. Christian's editions of Tolstoy's Diaries and Letters, both in two volumes, are definitive. Volume 1 of the Diaries covers the years 1847-1894, and Volume 2 the years 1895-1910. Passages have been chosen to reflect Tolstoy's preoccupations as a writer - his views on his own work and that of others - and his development as a person and as a thinker. The passages also show his attitude to contemporary social problems, rural life, industrialisation, education, and later, to religious and spiritual questions.R. F. Christian has grouped the diary entries chronologically, introducing each period with a brief and informative summary of the main biographical details of Tolstoy's life. The result is something much more than source material for Tolstoy's life and thought, though it could hardly be richer in that respect, it is a unique, direct and unhindered portrait of a great man and a very great writer in the variegation of his everyday existence.'As a picture of the turbulent Russian world which Tolstoy inhabited these diaries are incomparable - the raw stuff not yet processed into art.' Anthony Burgess'Professor Christian's work, a fitting companion to his two-volume edition of the Letters, is an important and long-overdue contribution to our knowledge of Tolstoy.' D. M. Thomas, Sunday Times'What Professor R. F. Christian has done is to provide us with a huge two-volume digest, punctiliously edited and translated . . . It is a model of scholarship, one of the most important books to be published in recent years.' A. N. Wilson, The Spectator 'R. F. Christian's engagement for some fifteen years with (Tolstoy's) letters and diaries has been a notable service to the English-speaking public.' Henry Gifford, Times Literary Supplement

In 2002 Vernon Scannell wrote the following: 'It has been my firm belief since I first began to attempt the art of poetry that the making of a poem should be, as Yeats asserted, a difficult business. However, I have always felt reservations about what seems to me the only partially true belief , stated by both Eliot and Hopkins in their different ways, that the meaning of a poem is of less significance than its structure and texture, Eliot's 'nice bit of meat for the house-dog.' Ideally the poem should be the perfection of expression of meaning inseparable from the methods by which that expression is achieved. As Paul Valery has said, 'A man is a poet if the difficulties inherent in his art provide him with ideas; he is not a poet if they deprive him if ideas.'That was an important statement, his credo. It can accurately be said that almost every poem in this collected volume bears testimony to it. Although not covering the full span of his career - Scannell didn't die until 2007 and was writing almost literally until the very end - the body of his work is here and how impressive it is. On immaculate display is a conspectus of poems embracing the narrative, lyrical, satirical and contemplative. There are poems of pathos and comedy, intelligence and passion: whatever their form, free verse or rhyming, tenor or subject, they are executed with unfailing craftsmanship.In his obituary of Vernon Scannell, Alan Brownjohn wrote, 'What might have been considered unusual given a colourful, even swashbuckling, personality that spawned innumerable anecdotes, was his fastidious procedure as a poet, his unflinching focus on the age-old themes of love, war and death, his concern for ''a real involvement with living experience''. Craft and care, and for that matter clarity and accessibility, were unquestionable necessities if you were serious about the art; students on Scannell's creative writing courses were liable to be sat down, hangover or not, to write a sonnet after breakfast.'''Scannell is one of what appears to be a vanishing breed, a poet of technical accomplishment who understands that poetry, like the other arts, is a craft as well.' Charles Osborne, Sunday Telegraph'You actually want to go back and revisit the poems many times. Their shrewd structures hold their elements firmly in place and they resonate also with the kind of humanity time is generous to . . . Scannell has earned a place in the tradition of English poetry.' Paul Fussell, Poetry Review '. . . accurate, humane, humorous, often eloquent and always well-made poems.' Anthony Thwaite, Sunday Telegraph

Palace of the Peacock, the first of Wilson Harris's many novels, was published in 1960, just one year after his arrival in Britain from Guyana. In a richly metaphorical style, the book sets out the themes Wilson continues to develop in his writing to this day: the ability of the imaginative consciousness to create worlds where disparate cultures and traditions are fused.Donne, an ambitious skipper, leads a multiracial crew up an unnamed river in the rainforest. He is searching for the indigenous people of the forest to exploit as cheap labour on his plantation. But the journey is beset with obstacles, and as the crew progress and their relationships develop, it takes on a more spiritual significance, culminating with the crew and the forest folk finding sanctuary and resolution in the visionary Palace of the Peacock.

With The Private Sector (1971) Joseph Hone introduced readers to British intelligence officer Peter Marlow, who would be the protagonist of three further novels - all now reissued in Faber Finds. Cairo, May 1967: Marlow is sent from London to find his friend and fellow spy Henry Edwards, who has vanished. In the course of this fool's errand he also finds his former wife, Bridget, now deeply entangled with Edwards. Marlow moves easily between British and Egyptian intelligence branches, attaching allegiance to neither - until he becomes the unwitting victim of a failed plot to topple Nasser. "e;An absolutely terrific espionage novel"e;. (James Dickey). "e;A brilliant and calculated spy story...[Hone's] characters and the quality of the writing are so good that he has transcended the usual limitations of the genre"e;. (Times Literary Supplement).

Roman towns and their history are generally regarded as being the preserve of the archaeologist or the economic historian. In this famous, unusual and radical book which touches on such disparate themes as psychology and urban architecture, Joseph Rykwert has considered them as works of art. His starting point is the mythical, historical and ritual texts in which their foundation is recounted rather than the excavated remains, such texts having parallels not merely in ancient Greece but also further afield Mesopotamia, India and China. To achieve his reading of the Roman town, he has invoked the comparative method of the anthropologists, and he examines first of all the 'Etruscan rite', a group of ceremonies by which all, or practically all, Roman towns were founded. The basic institutions of the town, its walls and gates, its central shrines and its forum are all of them part of a pattern to which the rituals and the myths that accompanied them provide clues. Like in other 'closed' societies, these rituals and myths served to create a secure home for the citizen of Rome and to make him feel part of his city and place it firmly in a knowable universe. 'It is refreshing to look at standard themes of the history of urban design from a nonrational point of view, to see surveyors as quasi priests and orthogonal planning as a sophisticated technique touched by divine mystery . . .. Rykwert's lasting worth will be to wrench us away from rationalist simplicities, and to make us face the fundamental disquietof the human spirit in its claim to a permanent place on the land.' Spiro Kostoff, Journal of the Society Architectural Historians

'Tennyson and Holman Hunt, Carlyles, Rossettis and any number of celebrated Trevelyans people these pages; and Mr Trevelyan's handling of their comings and goings is masterly.' Hilary SpurlingPauline Trevelyan, friend and patroness of so many in the Pre-Raphaelite circle, has long been an intriguing figure to scholars of that period. The daughter of a poor parson, she was married to Sir Walter Calverley Trevelyan, a landowner-cum-scientist twenty years her senior and her opposite in character. Herself an artist, writer and critic, she spotted Swinburne's talents when he was still a schoolboy, and commissioned important works from Rossetti, Woolner and others. From her immense correspondence we learn much about John Ruskin.A Pre-Raphaelite Circle reproduces a late-unearthed letter from Ruskin that is revelatory in respect of his marriage. For this and many other reasons it is a crucial work of reference for students of Ruskin and the Pre-Raphaelites.

Since his precise, potent and subtle portraits of Northern Irish life first came to public attention in the 1970s, Tom Paulin has been an unmissable writer on the contemporary poetry scene. This selection on his work draws on nearly four decades of poetry and translation, updating and expanding upon the Selected Poems 1972-1990, and showcasing the microscopic detail and reinvention of the ordinary with which Paulin writes of place, culture and memory. The Ireland of Paulin's childhood is explored both from a personal and a historical perspective to form a complex picture of a country in turmoil and in recovery. But Paulin's concerns are as international as they are local, as reflected in his long-standing appetite for European writers, histories and languages. Dialectic and lyrical, original and exploratory, ambitious and provocative, Tom Paulin is one of the defining voices of his generation: brilliantly varied and utterly compelling, as apparent from this New Selected Poems.

A young man decides to visit Nigeria after years of absence. Ahead lies the difficult journey back to the family house and all its memories; meetings with childhood friends and above all, facing up to the paradox of Nigeria, whose present is as burdened by the past as it is facing a new future.Along the way, our narrator encounters life in Lagos. He is captivated by a woman reading on a danfo; attempts to check his email are frustrated by Yahoo boys; he is charmingly duped buying fuel. He admires the grace of an aunty, bereaved by armed robbers and is inspired by the new malls and cultural venues. The question is: should he stay or should he leave?But before the story can even begin, he has to queue for his visa..Every Day is for the Thiefis a striking portrait of Nigeria in change. Through a series of cinematic portraits of everyday life in Lagos, Teju Cole provides a fresh approach to the returnee experience.- See more at: http://www.cassavarepublic.biz/products/every-day-is-for-the-thief#sthash.qe7r4oNv.dpuf

Filthy Talk for Troubled Time is one of LaBute's earliest plays. A downbeat night at a topless bar exposes the gulf between the twitchy clientele and the waitresses who serve but despise them. The Mercy Seat examines a couple who, on the day after a world-changing atrocity, toy with exploiting it to start a new life. Some Girl(s) follows a young writer's panicked retreat from his imminent wedding as he seeks out old girlfriends and opens new wounds, while in This Is How It Goes the breakdown of a seemingly successful marriage is complicated by submerged bigotry. The collection also includes two short plays about relationships in crisis - A Second of Pleasure and Helter Skelter - which are in equal part tender and chilling.Together these plays form a complex and compelling portrait of the sexes - sometimes warring, sometimes loving, but never fully at peace.

This new edition of leading opera critic Rupert Christiansen's perennially popular Pocket Guide has between extensively revised, and incorporates many more operas from all periods, including recent works by Philip Glass, Mark Anthony Turnage, Thomas Ades and George Benjamin. Whether you are a first-timer at La Boheme or a seasoned Wagnerian, every opera-goer can benefit from a little background information, and this book aims to provide just that. Accessible and easy-to-use, it contains entries for over a hundred works, both familiar and unfamiliar.

From the author of Life of Pi, comes an edgy, funny and devastating novel. Self is the fictional autobiography of a young writer at the heart of which is a startling twist. This extraordinary life meanders through a rich, complicated, bittersweet world. The discoveries of childhood give way to the thousand pangs of adolescence, culminating in the sudden shocking news of an accident abroad. And as adulthood begins, indecisively, boundaries are crossed between countries, languages and people . . .

The Vaughans are all set to enjoy Christmas. Thomas has been promoted and Nora is delighted. Everything at last seems to be going right, until a visitor arrives uninvited and causes them to question just how perfect their marriage is.Henrik Ibsen's A Doll's House caused outrage both in its style and subject matter when first staged in 1879. Zinnie Harris's retelling is played against the backdrop of British politics at the turn of the last century - to revel a world where duty, power and hypocrisy rule.Zinnie Harris's version of A Doll's House premiered at the Donmar Warehouse, London, in May 2009.

Dear Friends, I may be a small classroom hamster, but even I'm amazed at how many unsqueakably exciting adventures I've had. I've had a spooky mystery to solve on Halloween, nighttime escapades at school and even gone to Winter Wonderland. I've had so many HO-HO-HO hilarious adventures I've put some more of them into this big book to share with you! Your friend, Humphrey

From the number one bestselling author of SAFE HOUSE comes a story about friendship, family, secrets, lies, and the things we do for love.When Claire Cooper was eight, her mother disappeared during Hop-tu-naa, the Manx Halloween. When Claire was eighteen, she and her friends took part in a Hop-tu-naa dare that went terribly wrong. Now in her early twenties and a police officer, what happened that Hop-tu-naa night has come back to haunt them all, and Claire must confront her deepest fears in order to stop a killer from striking again.For fans of Stephen King and Harlan Coben, this is I KNOW WHAT YOU DID LAST SUMMER meets THE WICKER MAN from one of the country's new generation of thriller writers. 'Ewan has become a master storyteller.' Ann Cleeves'A rising star of the genre.' Simon Kernick

First published in 1939, On Russian Music was conceived by Gerald Abraham as a sequel to his earlier Studies in Russian Music (1935, also in Faber Finds), and complements the previous work in many useful respects. Glinka moves to the forefront via close study of both of his operas. A historical account of the composition of Borodin's Prince Igor enriches the critical study made in the first book. And chapters on Mlada and Tsar Saltan round out Abraham's appreciations of the major operas of Rimsky-Korsakov.There are also critical and historical essays on works by Mussorgsky, Dargom,zhsky, Tchaikovsky and other composers, and analyses that, in their time, threw new light on the programmatic meaning of such well-known compositions as Scheherazade and the Path,tique symphony. The book is superbly illustrated with music examples throughout.

Nicholas Wiseman was not yet 26 years of age when he became rector of the English College in Rome. Pope Leo XII then made him curator of Arabic manuscripts in the Vatican, and professor of Oriental languages at the Roman University. But in 1840 this brilliant scholar returned to England, where he did much to bridge the gap between the Oxford Movement and the English Catholic community.However in 1850 Wiseman found himself at the centre of a violent political storm when Pius IX named him first Archbishop of Westminster. Wiseman's coach was pelted with stones; the cry of 'Papal Aggression' was taken up in official circles; and it was only Wiseman's eloquent pamphlet Appeal to the English People which served to usher in a more tolerant attitude.Brian Fothergill's biography, first published in 1963, is a discerning study of the man who laid the foundations of the Catholic revival.

- Idea for a story. A beautiful young girl lives by a lake all her life. She loves this lake. She's happy and free, like that bird was once. Then a man comes along and for no reason at all... what do you think he does?- He destroys her.A story about how we make stories, a story about unrequited love, The Seagull is one of the great plays of the modern era. Chekhov explores emotion and creativity with the clarity of a doctor and the heart of a poet.John Donnelly's version of Anton Chekhov's The Seagull premiered in a Headlong and The Nuffield, Southampton co-production, in association with Derby Playhouse. The play opened in April 2013, followed by a UK tour.

'This is a book begun, but not finished. I could not finish it. Many times I have come close to destroying it, thinking I should have no rest while it remained to reproach me. I could not bring myself to do it. I have therefore given instructions that it should be sealed in a box, which is to remain unopened until I, my wife Laura, our sister Marion Halcombe, and all our children are dead.'So begins James Wilson's brilliant imaginative recreation of the Victorian sensation novel as the characters from Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White - Walter Hartright and Marion Halcombe - are involved in another dramatic and dangerous conspiracy. Walter is commissioned to write a biography of the greatest of English painters, JMW Turner, whose life was shrouded in mystery. His researches take him to the dark secret at the centre of Turner's work and involve him and Marion in confronting crimes and human degradation that threaten their sanity and their lives.The Dark Clue takes us into Victorian England in all its staggering extremes; of poverty and wealth, of slums and stately homes, of public morality and private vice in an unforgettable tale of suspense.

In the Oxford Companion to Children's Literature it says of James Reeves, 'His real achievement, however, lies in his poetry, which is generally regarded as the best British ''serious'' children's verse since Walter de la Mare - though the poems are usually far from serious in subject-matter.'In this complete edition, first published in 1973, the delight is two-fold as the poems are complemented by Edward Ardizzone's beautiful and witty illustrations.

Imogen Holst's Tune (Faber, 1962) is a searching enquiry into the invention of tune and at the same time a comprehensive anthology of tunes from folksong to the present day. Plainsong, street-cries, the songs of the English lutenists, Bach's dances, and Mozart's arias - whatever the origins and character of the tunes in question, Imogen Holst (daughter of the composer, Gustav Holst) has something fresh and revealing to say about them. And she does not confine herself to familiar ground. One of her most illuminating chapters is devoted to the music of India, where a raga can provide improvised 'tune' of several hours duration. This chapter is the result of her personal experience of studying music in India, and it is typical of her vivid approach to the subject. Her book is for everyone who likes to sing, play, whistle, hum or listen to a good tune.

It is difficult now to imagine the shock that this book caused when it was first published in 1932. The author was a teacher at a Cambridge college, an intensely serious man who had been seriously wounded by poison gas on the Western Front, and he was not disposed to suffer foolishness gladly. His opening sentences were arresting: 'Poetry matters little to the modern world. That is, very little of contemporary intelligence concerns itself with poetry'. What followed was nothing less than the welcoming of a revolution in English verse, set against the moral and social crisis that followed the trauma of the First World War. It was this situation, this feeling of breakdown and disorder, that gave such force to Leavis's dismissal of most late Romantic poetry and his welcoming of the modernists T. S. Eliot and Ezra Pound, and of the writer who Leavis regarded as their forebear, Gerard Manley Hopkins. The tone of high moral urgency, and the message that the experience of literature could become an engagement with life that was almost a secular equivalent to religion, seemed new and abrasively refreshing. Leavis despised the reigning dilettantism in both poetry and criticism, and in this book he threw down the gauntlet to the establishment as he understood it. In the same year he founded the journal Scrutiny, and began his long career as the most formidably serious literary critic of his time.

This is a sad, strange and touchingly heroic book. It tells of a mad, misguided adventure: one man's attempt to conquer Mount Everest. Maurice Wilson belonged to the 'lost generation'. He fought in the First World War, winning the Military Cross, but found the transition to civilian life difficult. He led a restless, rootless life and suffered ill-health. This changed mysteriously in 1932 when through, it would seem, a combination of prayer and fasting he cured himself. His Mount Everest ambitions started to take shape. They could not have been more ambitious. His odyssey was to begin in Britain. He bought himself an airplane. He couldn't fly, was a poor student, but finally learnt the rudiments. Despite all the odds, and much official obstruction, he managed to fly to India. More obstacles followed, but on 21 March, 1934 Maurice Wilson and three Sherpas slipped out of Darjeeling disguises as Buddhist monks. Wilson's first attempt on Mount Everest was solo. It failed. He tried again this time with the three Sherpas. They made better progress initially. From the base camp, Wilson made two more attempts on the final ascent. A year later Eric Shipton's reconnaissance party found his body at the approaches to the North Col. They also found his diary: the final entry read, 'Off again, gorgeous day.' The diary provides an astonishing record of persistence, courage, and a faith that never wavered in the face of appalling hardship and adversity.Although this is a chronicle of failure, the achievement can still be marvelled at. Here was a man with no flying or mountaineering experience whatsoever who managed to fly from Britain to India and then nearly conquers Mount Everest : there are even those who speculate he might have done so but even without that fanciful embellishment it is an extraordinary story.This book, first published in 1957, has been out of print for a very long time. Its renewed availability will delight not just those interested in mountaineering but also connoisseurs of adventure stories.

In a stunning memoir-cum-travelogue Peter Carey charts this journey, inspired by Charley's passion for Japanese Manga and anime, and explores his own resulting re-evaluation of Japan. Although graphically violent and disturbing, the two mediums are both inherently concerned with Japan's rich history and heritage, and hold a huge popular appeal that crosses the generations.Led by their adolescent guide Takashi, an uncanny mix of generosity and derision, father and son look for the hidden puzzles and meanings, searching, often with comic results, for a greater understanding of these art forms, and for what they come to refer to as their own 'real Japan'. From Manhattan to Tokyo, Commodore Perry to Godzilla, kabuki theatre to the post-war robot craze, Wrong about Japan is a fascinatingly personal, witty and moving exploration of two very different cultures.

It's easy to underestimate the eccentric, quietly spoken Inspector James Boswell Hodge Leonard, with his bicycle and his tweeds, and his superiors who make the mistake of doing so soon discover he's not too keen on toeing the Establishment line.When the grisly corpse of a traveller is found outside a Roman bath, Leonard's orders are to clear up the mess with no fuss, but he begins to kick over Bath's social dustbins and out tumbles decades of secrets and suspects, not smelling too sweetly...The rich and sadistic Montague James, controller of people's lives; Hilary, the former adult film star; Norma, the painter of controversial nudes; they all know more than they are revealing. Leonard's problem is to find the one person who knows the truth - before the rest do, and before the powers that be put the lids back on those dustbins...

First published in 1999, Secret Kingdom was the second panel in Francis Bennett's Cold War trilogy.'For all of us now the Cold War is history... What interested me as a writer was how we survived. What went on behind the scenes?... I went looking for my own fictional explanations for historical events... In Secret Kingdom, which takes place in Hungary in the dangerous summer months [of 1956] that led directly to the Revolution, I knew that the British ambassador's warnings of trouble building up had been ignored by the Foreign Office in London. Why? What were the consequences of such an extraordinary and irresponsible act?' Francis Bennett 'The Cold War here is not just a political but also a psychological landscape... In picking out a personal history from the greater tapestry unfolding in the background Bennett has produced a literary thriller of considerable merit.' The Times

This book is a narrative history of the Austrian Monarchy from 1790 to its break-up in 1918. Its theme is the hundred year struggle between the venerable dynastic empire which ruled Central Europe, and the new national, political and social forces in conflict with it, an with one another. The author starts with the death of Emperor Joseph 11 in 1790, the event which he takes as marking the turn of the tide in the struggle between autocracy and centralisation on the one side, and the new forces on the other; but he prefixes his narrative with a brief account of Joseph's own reign, and with a comprehensive picture of the old monarchy on the threshold of the new age. C. A. Macartney takes his subject as comprising the monarchy as a whole, every people, class and province in it. He thus brings and makes intelligible the diversity within the unity, and the unity synthesising the diversity, which give the history of the Austrian Monarchy its special and unique character. The author was long acquainted with the countries and peoples that were once part of the Habsburg Empire and it was this experience, combined with linguistic accomplishments that enabled him to draw on an exceptionally wide range of sources. The result is a work of monumental scholarship written with unique insight and understanding.

'The best book on football ever written.' Franz Beckenbauer, winner of the World Cup as both player and manager.In Football Memories, Brian Glanville himself writes, 'The central character, Garry, was a Scottish inside-forward based on Danny Blanchflower. This, largely because the footballer had to be untypically intelligent and aware, as well as an accomplished performer. Danny, so fluent, so original, and in certain ways so flawed, seemed an ideal model. Yet he, or his surrogate, could not carry the whole book. I used various voices. His wife's. My own.'Ever since J. B. Priestley's pre-publication endorsement - 'I enjoyed this highly original novel' - praise has been constant:'This is a brilliant novel. Any footballer can see a little of himself in Gerry Logan, as I did when I first read it. The book tells what the pressures are like in the game, the temptations to which successful players are exposed and yet the human qualities tell us much about society and human nature in general.' Derek Dougan'The best novel on soccer I have ever read.' Daily Herald'Soars into first-class fiction.' The Spectator'An acid fable of our age, solid with expertise about football and its seamier secrets.' Daily Mail 'The whole world of big time soccer, with its glamour and bitter feuds, made very real.' Sunday Telegraph

To Horace Walpole's house at Strawberry Hill, in Twickenham, came a remarkable assortment of poets and writers, artists and antiquaries, politicians and society figures. Among them were Thomas Gray, whose great 'Elegy' might never have been published without Walpole's encouragement; that 'laughter-loving dame' Kitty Clive, the greatest comic actress of her day; Lady Suffolk who entertained Walpole with stories of the days when she was George II's mistress; the epicene John Chute, whose architectural knowledge and enthusiasm helped to inspire Strawberry Hill; the gentle Berry sisters, who comforted Walpole's old age; George Selwyn, celebrated for his wit, languor, and necrophilia. 'If Mr Selwyn calls', said Mr Fox on his death-bed, 'show him up. If I'm still alive I'll be glad to see him and if I'm dead he'll be glad to see me.' The most fascinating member of this circle was Horace Walpole himself. Son of Sir Robert, Member of Parliament for many years, author of the first Gothic romance, The Castle of Otranto, passionate collector, influential amateur of architecture and, above all, prince of English letter-writers, he emerges gradually but clearly through the eyes of his friends. Brian Fothergill, always an accomplished biographer, perhaps found his most congenial subject in this book: the result is a work as entertaining as it is informative.