Too Close To The Sun: The Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton - Hardcover

Wheeler, Sara

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224063804 ISBN 13: 9780224063807

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 2006

Synopsis

Denys Finch Hatton was an aristocrat of leonine nonchalance. He was 6 foot 3 inches tall, and once lifted a car out of a ditch unaided. After a dazzling career at Eton and Oxford, he sailed in 1910 for British East Africa. There, in this earthly paradise, he first had an affair with the pantherine aviatrix Beryl Markham, and then - famously - with Karen Blixen, a romance immortalised in her book Out of Africa. 'No one who ever met him,' his Times obituary concluded, 'whether man or woman, old or young, white or black, failed to come under his spell.'

Too Close to the Sun tells the true story of this now legendary love affair, and recreates in telling detail the life of one of the key figures in the mythic story of the British settlers in East Africa. Finch Hatton was a soldier in the East Africa Campaign, a white hunter, a farmer, a pilot, the epitome of the brave pioneer. To quote The Times again, 'He always left an impression of greatness ... and aroused interest as no one else could. It was not only his magnificent physique and striking features; there was the ready intuition and sympathy with every type of character, a wonderful sense of humour, determination; and yet behind it all, indefinite but ever present, a feeling of waste.'

About this title

Review:

"A good story... a fitting memorial" (Observer)

"A fascinating story of a man trying to outrun the social upheavals of the twentieth century" (Herald)

"Wheeler has made excellent use of the sources at hand... Moreover, Wheeler writes well, and has a gift - shared by only very few - for pinning down the smells and atmosphere of the African landscape" (Literary Review)

"She dazzles the reader with an evocation of time and place...her description of the East Africa Campaign is detailed and enthralling" (Keith Dovkants Scotsman)

"She writes beautifully, with a vivid turn of phrase, a sound grasp of history and an impish humour" (Andrew Lycett Sunday Times)

From the Publisher:

A brilliant new biography by the acclaimed author of Cherry and Terra Incognita

About this edition

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0224063804
• ISBN 13: 9780224063807
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 304