Charlotte Mew and Her Friends: With a Selection of Her Poems (Radcliffe Biography S.) - Hardcover

Fitzgerald, Penelope; Mew, Charlotte Mary

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0201088959 ISBN 13: 9780201088953

Publisher: Addison Wesley Longman Publishing Co, 1988

Synopsis

Penelope Fitzgerald’s fascinating portrait of the tragic poet and her life at the heart of the Bloomsbury set.

Charlotte Mew (1869-1928) cut one of the most distinctive figures of the twentieth century – beloved of Siegfried Sassoon and Walter de la Mare (for whom she was ‘a very rare being’), unafraid of Virginia Woolf, and considered by Hardy to be ‘far and away the best living woman poet’.

Part of a new wave of fashionable female dandies who lived passionate, precarious existences in Bloomsbury, she was an enchanting and spirited personality. But behind the brave face was a life riddled with grief: left to care for her disturbed mother, two siblings with undiagnosed Schizophrenia and Charlotte herself burdened by depression and closeted lesbianism; she killed herself by drinking household disinfectant.

In this unexpectedly gripping portrait of a life of passion unfulfilled, Penelope Fitzgerald brings all her novelist’s skills into play in telling a story that is at once tragic, beautiful and deeply human.

About this title

Review

‘A perceptive, witty biography. A marvel and a curiosity ... reads like a Thomas Hardy novel’ The Times

‘Everyone says you can’t write the biography of a genius. Penelope Fitzgerald has ... and she has managed to present Charlotte Mew with such subtlety that you feel you’ve read her work, even if you haven’t’ The Times

‘Absorbing ... full of insight and sympathy and mellow humour’ Observer

‘Wise and ironic, funny and humane, Fitzgerald is a wonderful, wonderful writer.’ David Nicholls

‘The heartbreaking story, beautifully told, of a hitherto underestimated poet. Tantalizing but touching, an entire life’s emotional history in a short space.’ Victoria Glendinning, Sunday Times

‘A subtle, succinct, generous biography.’ Hilary Spurling, Evening Standard

From the Back Cover

"A tantalising, touching story. An entire life's emotional history in a short space."
VICTORIA GLENDINNING, 'Sunday Times'

Charlotte Mew (1869 – 1928) was a poet with a formidable reputation who, Thomas Hardy declared, was 'far and away the best living woman poet' and who wrote some of the finest English poems of the twentieth century. Her private life, to all appearances, was content and respectable: she was a dutiful daughter, living at home in late Victorian Bloomsbury, waiting, with the help of a sister, on a monster of an old mother. The proprieties had to be observed and no-one suspected that the Mews had no money, that two siblings were insane and that Charlotte was a lesbian, living in the dark thrill of self-inflicted frustration.

On all this Charlotte put a brave face, but despite literary success and a passionate, enchanting personality, eventually the conflicts within her drove her to despair, and she killed herself by drinking a glass of the household disinfectant, Lysol, the cheapest poison available.

In this unexpectedly gripping portrait of 'Bloomsbury's saddest poet', Penelope Fitzgerald brings all her novelists skills into play. The story she tells is a tragic one, but the book is full of the love of life.

"Moving and vivid. Her story reads like a Victorian melodrama"
RACHEL BILLINGTON, 'Financial Times'

"A sad story, beautifully told."
MARK GIROUARD, 'Guardian'

"Everyone says you can't write the biography of a genius. Penelope Fitzgerald has…and she has managed to present Charlotte Mew with such subtlety that you feel you've read her work, even if you haven't."
PATRIC DICKINSON, 'The Times'

WITH A SELECTION OF CHARLOTTE MEW'S POEMS

About this edition

• Publisher: Addison Wesley Longman Publishing Co
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0201088959
• ISBN 13: 9780201088953
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 276