Being Shelley: The Poet s Search for Himself - Hardcover

Wroe, Ann

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0224080784 ISBN 13: 9780224080781

Publisher: Jonathan Cape, 2007

Synopsis

This book takes the life of one of England’s greatest poets and turns it inside out. Rather than following a daily round in which poetry erupts occasionally, it tracks the inner adventures of a spirit struggling to escape and create. This is the life of the poet, rather than the man. Four questions consumed Shelley and coloured everything he wrote. Who, or what, was he? What was his purpose? Where had he come from? And where was he going? He sought the answers in order to free and empower not only himself, but the whole human race. His revolution would shatter the earth’s illusions, shock men and women with new visions, find true Love and Liberty – and take everyone with him. Now, for the first time, this passionate and radical quest is put at the centre of Shelley’s life. The result is a spiritual journey that is as dangerous and exhilarating as it is astonishing. This is Shelley as he has never been seen before.

About this title

Product Description

Rare Book

Review

'A superb work of creative imagining.' -- Daily Telegraph

'An extraordinary feat of scholarship...a risky but exhilarating
book.' -- Guardian Weekend Review

'Being Shelley is worth reading.' -- Financial Times

'fascinating, experimental... A voyage into the mind that wrote
the poetry and struggled with ideas, some mad, some sane, all
interesting... As a history of how an unusual creative mind worked, it
offers a new departure in the way biography is written' -- The Sunday Times rev'd by Lucasta Miller

'indispensible to anyone writing or thinking about the poet from
now on....This is a startlingly good book, destined, I fear, to be widely
and very badly imitated...Wroe is a writer of unusual excellence, and a
reader of exceptional sensitivity' -- Spectator rev'd by Sam Leith

'this radical and original approach suits its subject well'
-- Waterstone's Books Quarterly

`Her collage shimmers like reflections on water, trembles,
dissolves and returns to form under the action of an invisible breeze or
current ... Wroe's emotional responses to her research are palpable.' -- Sunday Herald

`It traces the movement of his mind...with exhilarating assurance,
precision and panache'.
-- Observer

`There is biographical information in the book - a wondrous,
copious flow of it....the structure works well for this most elemental of
writers... Wroe has gone right back to the archaeology of his thought,
mining his notebooks and drafts' -- Independent on Sunday rev'd by Suzi Feay

`a remarkable experiment in form by a stylish writer'
-- Hilary Mantel, The Observer

About this edition

• Publisher: Jonathan Cape
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0224080784
• ISBN 13: 9780224080781
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 464