This Long Pursuit: Reflections of a Romantic Biographer

(Paperback)

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Across three centuries, and much of Europe Holmes writes beautifully A masterly performance by the greatest literary biographer of his generation The Oldie
In this kaleidoscope of stories spanning art, science and poetry, award-winning writer Richard Holmes confesses to a lifetimes obsession with his Romantic subjects. This pursuit has taken him across three centuries, through much of Europe and into the lively company of many earlier biographers.

Central to this quest is a powerful evocation of the lives of women both scientific and literary, some well-known and others almost lost: Margaret Cavendish, Mary Somerville, Germaine de Stal, Mary Wollstonecraft and Zlide. He investigates the myths that have overshadowed the lives of some favourite Romantics: the love-stunned John Keats, the waterlogged Percy Bysshe Shelley, the chocolate-box painter Thomas Lawrence, the opium-soaked genius Coleridge, and the mad-visionary bard William Blake.

The diversity of Holmess material is testimony to his empathy, erudition and enquiring spirit; and at times his mischievous streak. This Long Pursuit contains Richard Holmess most personal and seductive writing yet.

Reviews

A must read intriguing and satisfying All the sketches makes illuminating reading, in many cases deliberately setting out to provoke a rethink of earlier biographies I thoroughly enjoyed the book; indeed I devoured it Athene Donald, Guardian

Compulsive, fastidious journey through 50 years of his own notebooks Holmes gives an insight into his methods, Books of the Year, Observer

A glorious series of essays on the art of life writing and a worthy successor to his earlier volumes on the craft, Footsteps and Sidetracks heaven for Holmes fans the best account imaginable for the richness of his form Observer

This collection of 50 years of high-profile lectures and anthology contributions offers us a lorryload of arresting subjects This Long Pursuit is distinguished by a geniality of tone Holmes's eye for detail is as sharp as ever The Times

Holmes writes beautifully of the perils of memory and forgetting perhaps the essay that best sums up Holmes's endeavour is his superb explosion of the accepted account of Coleridge's 1808 lectures to the Royal Institution a masterly performance by the greatest literary biographer of his generation The Oldie

Author Bio

Richard Holmes is Professor of Biographical Studies at the University of East Anglia, and editor of the Harper Perennial series Classic Biographies launched in 2004. His is a Fellow of the British Academy, has honorary doctorates from UEA and the Tavistock Institute, and was awarded an OBE in 1992. His first book, Shelley: The Pursuit, won the Somerset Maugham Prize in 1974. Coleridge: Early Visions won the 1989 Whitbread Book of the Year, and Dr Johnson & Mr Savage won the James Tait Black Prize. Coleridge: Darker Reflections, won the Duff Cooper Prize and the Heinemann Award. He has published two studies of European biography, Footsteps: Adventures of a Romantic Biographer in 1985, and Sidetracks: Explorations of a Romantic Biographer in 2000.