The Life of Kingsley AmisHere is the authorized, definitive biography of one of the most controversial figures of twentieth-century literature, renowned for his blistering intelligence, savage wit and belligerent fierceness of opinion: Kingsley Amis was not only the finest comic novelist of his generation–having first achieved prominence with the publication of Lucky Jim in 1954 and as one of the Angry Young Men–but also a dominant figure in post—World War II British writing as novelist, poet, critic and polemicist. In The Life of Kingsley Amis, Zachary Leader, acclaimed editor of The Letters of Kingsley Amis, draws not only on unpublished works and correspondence but also on interviews with a wide range of Amis’s friends, relatives, fellow writers, students and colleagues, many of whom have never spoken out before. The result is a compulsively readable account of Amis’s childhood, school days and life as a student at Oxford, teacher, critic, political and cultural commentator, professional author, husband, father and lover. Even as he makes the case for Amis’s cultural centrality–at his death Time magazine claimed that “the British decades between 1955 and 1995 should in fairness be called ‘the Amis era’”–Leader explores the writer’s phobias, self-doubts and ambitions; the controversies in which he was embroiled; and the role that drink played in a life bedeviled by erotic entanglements, domestic turbulence and personal disaster. Dazzling for its thoroughness, psychological acuity and elegant style, The Life of Kingsley Amis is exemplary: literary biography at its very best. |
From inside the book
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Page 22
... essay to his friend Esmond Cleary , an economics lecturer at the University College of Swansea , who liked William Amis and shared his passion for cricket ; after reading it , Cleary sought to return it to Amis , but the offer was ...
... essay to his friend Esmond Cleary , an economics lecturer at the University College of Swansea , who liked William Amis and shared his passion for cricket ; after reading it , Cleary sought to return it to Amis , but the offer was ...
Page 24
... essay because they are literally as well as figuratively pushy : ' barging past you in buses and streetcars or pushing in front of you in queues with never a " by your leave " .65 They don't know their place . Knowing your place was a ...
... essay because they are literally as well as figuratively pushy : ' barging past you in buses and streetcars or pushing in front of you in queues with never a " by your leave " .65 They don't know their place . Knowing your place was a ...
Page 36
... essay , ' Bookshop Memories ' ( 1936 ) . In this essay Orwell partly recounts his experiences working in a lending library of the sort Amis's mother frequented : ' the usual " twopenny no - deposit " library of five or six hundred ...
... essay , ' Bookshop Memories ' ( 1936 ) . In this essay Orwell partly recounts his experiences working in a lending library of the sort Amis's mother frequented : ' the usual " twopenny no - deposit " library of five or six hundred ...
Page 43
... essay , ' Boys ' Weeklies ' , written in 1939 , they held a special appeal for pupils at non - ancient and cheaper private day and boarding - schools . Orwell himself worked briefly at one such school ( while Amis attended another , CLS ) ...
... essay , ' Boys ' Weeklies ' , written in 1939 , they held a special appeal for pupils at non - ancient and cheaper private day and boarding - schools . Orwell himself worked briefly at one such school ( while Amis attended another , CLS ) ...
Page 45
... essay ' entertaining but characteristically fatuous ' , 32 was in its claims that the weeklies offered ' a perfectly deliberate incitement to wealth fantasy ' and ' pumped into [ their readers ] the conviction that the major problems of ...
... essay ' entertaining but characteristically fatuous ' , 32 was in its claims that the weeklies offered ' a perfectly deliberate incitement to wealth fantasy ' and ' pumped into [ their readers ] the conviction that the major problems of ...
Contents
1 | |
35 | |
52 | |
71 | |
92 | |
The War | 128 |
Postwar Oxford | 161 |
Oxford and Eynsham | 204 |
Patrick and Dai | 426 |
Cambridge | 449 |
Waking Beauty | 471 |
Breakup | 500 |
Divisions | 521 |
Lefties Toffs and Bigots | 559 |
Lemmons | 600 |
Dissolution | 642 |
Swansea | 234 |
Making Lucky Jim | 257 |
Fame and Friendship | 279 |
Uncertain Feelings | 300 |
Fun | 317 |
Abroad | 330 |
Widening Horizons | 352 |
Princeton | 383 |
Nadir | 684 |
Return | 731 |
Ending Up | 766 |
Afterlife | 811 |
Notes | 827 |
Bibliography | 943 |
Index | 961 |
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Common terms and phrases
Amis and Jane Amis told Amis wrote Amis's Amises Anthony Powell Anti-Death League Archer asked Biography Blackmur Blake Morrison Bodleian boys called Colin College Conquest December Dixon drink Elizabeth Jane Howard Ellingham English Eric Jacobs Essays Faber father friends funny Fussell Gollancz Hilly Hilly's Huntington Ibid interview Jake's Thing Jane's January jazz John July June Keeley Kingsley Amis later lecturer Lemmons letter to Larkin literary lived London look Lucky Jim lunch March Martin Amis Memoirs never novel novelist November October Old Devils Oxford party Penguin Peterhouse Philip Larkin poems poet poetry political Princeton published Quoted recalls remembers Robert Conquest Russian Hide-and-Seek Sally Salwak September Slipstream sort stay story suggested Sunday Swansea Take a Girl talk tell things thought tion took Uncertain Feeling University Wain week wife women writing wrote to Larkin