The Life of Kingsley AmisThe eagerly-awaited authorized biography of Kingsley Amis. In this, the authorized biography, Zachary Leader argues that Kingsley Amis was not only the finest comic novelist of his generation, but the dominant figure of post-war British writing. Drawing not only on interviews with a range of Amis’s friends, relatives, fellow writers, students and colleagues, many of them never before consulted, but also on almost a thousand previously unpublished letters, Leader’s biography will for the first time give a full picture of Amis’s childhood, school-days, life as a teacher, critic, polemicist, professional author, husband, father and lover. He explores Amis’s fears and phobias, and the role that drink played in his life. And of course he pays due attention to Amis’s work. As the editor of Kingsley Amis’s Letters (hailed in the Sunday Telegraph as “one of the last major monuments to the epistolary art”), Leader is more than qualified to be his authorized biographer. His book will surprise, entertain and illuminate. |
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Page 453
After the excitements of Blackmur and other critical high flyers at Princeton,
Swansea seemed intellectually dead. Cambridge, in contrast, was 'a whole flight
of steps up the academic hierarchy from Swansea . . . and it had Dr. F.R. Leavis
at it'.
After the excitements of Blackmur and other critical high flyers at Princeton,
Swansea seemed intellectually dead. Cambridge, in contrast, was 'a whole flight
of steps up the academic hierarchy from Swansea . . . and it had Dr. F.R. Leavis
at it'.
Page 455
15 In Cambridge, though, Watson found Amis 'over-reverent of what scholars did.
I remember him consulting me then on what can only have been an
unrealistically erudite study of literary utopias, mostly forgotten works of the
nineteenth ...
15 In Cambridge, though, Watson found Amis 'over-reverent of what scholars did.
I remember him consulting me then on what can only have been an
unrealistically erudite study of literary utopias, mostly forgotten works of the
nineteenth ...
Page 503
Plans for the move to Majorca had been quickly set in motion after the return to
Cambridge at the end of the summer. By 17 December 1962 Conquest was
writing to Larkin that 'Kingsley now seems determined to leave Cantab at the end
of the ...
Plans for the move to Majorca had been quickly set in motion after the return to
Cambridge at the end of the summer. By 17 December 1962 Conquest was
writing to Larkin that 'Kingsley now seems determined to leave Cantab at the end
of the ...
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The life of Kingsley Amis
User Review - Not Available - Book VerdictLeader's (English, Univ. of Roehampton, U.K.; editor,The Letters of Kingsley Amis ) biography of novelist, poet, essayist, and journalist Kingsley Amis (1922-95) was authorized by the subject's son ... Read full review
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Common terms and phrases
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Bibliographic information
| Title | The Life of Kingsley Amis |
| Author | Zachary Leader |
| Edition | illustrated |
| Publisher | Jonathan Cape, 2006 |
| Original from | the University of Michigan |
| Digitized | 28 May 2008 |
| ISBN | 0224062271, 9780224062275 |
| Length | 996 pages |
| Export Citation | BiBTeX EndNote RefMan |