Charlotte Mew and Her Friends: With a Selection of Her Poems (Radcliffe Biography Series)

Fitzgerald, Penelope

ISBN 10: 0201080192 / ISBN 13: 9780201080193

Published by Addison-Wesley, 1989

Seller Inventory # 0201080192-3-35899929

Synopsis:

Penelope Fitzgerald's fascinating porttrait of Bloomsbury's saddest poet. Charlotte Mew (1869--1928) was a poet with a formidable reputation who, as Virginia Woolf put it, was 'very good and interesting and unlike anyone else' and who wrote some of the best English poems of the twentieth century. In her private life, to all appearances, she was a dutiful daughter living at home with a monster of an old mother. The proprieties had to be observed and no one must know that the Mews had no money, that two siblings were insane and that Charlotte was a secret lesbian, living a life of self-inflicted frustration. Despite literary success and a passionate, enchanting personality, eventually the conflicts within her drove her to despair, and she killed herself by swallowing household disinfectant. In this unexpectedly gripping portrait, Penelope Fitzgerald brings all her novelist's skills into play, giving us what Victoria Glendinning calls a 'tantalising, touching story!an entire life's emotional history in a short space'.

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

Bibliographic Details

Title: Charlotte Mew and Her Friends: With a ...
Publisher: Addison-Wesley
Publication Date: 1989
Binding: paperback
Condition: Good