- Hardcover: 734 pages
- Publisher: OUP Oxford; annotated edition edition (28 April 2005)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0199276595
- ISBN-13: 978-0199276592
- Product Dimensions: 23.4 x 16 x 4.6 cm
- Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 1,276,953 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
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Review
Haffenden's narrative is driven along with such gusto, such alert intelligence, such obvious pleasure in the task, that no one could reasonably grumble at the story's inordinate length. It is a virtuoso feat of scholarship: a telling demonstration of what biography, as it finest, can actually achieve. (Ian Donaldson Australian Book Review )
...a stunning demonstration of the power of intellectual biography (Ronald Shusterman, Universite de Provence )
'...measured and affectionate in tone, exhaustive in detail, lucid in the exposition of his difficult verse and often anguished life.' (Sam Leith, The Spectator )
Magisterial scholarship (Ruben Christiansen, The Spectator )
A magnificent biography. (Terry Eagleton, New Statesman )
A triumph. It is funny, dense, touching and farcical. This is an exhilarating tale. (Margaret Drabble, Books of the Year, TLS )
Haffenden is without doubt the world's foremost authority on the details of Empson's life. (Jason Harding, TLS )
'a magnificent biography... [a] grippingly readable volume'. (Terry Eagleton, New Statesman Books of the Year )
One of the finest biographies of an English literary figure. (James Wood, Guardian Review )
Magnificent and surprisingly gripping book, intelligently written, with a background of thorough research, well-illustrated and well-indexed. (Anthony Thwaite, Sunday Telegraph )
A wonderful book...Haffenden's research is exhilaratingly deep and wide, his feeling for both the work and the man is warm but always judicious, and his prose is a model of elegant, grown-up clarity, seasoned with quiet and civil wit. (Kevin Jackson, The Sunday Times )
Haffenden is the most genial of scholarly chroniclers, adopting a leisurely and discursive pace and tone that are appropriately Empsonian in warmth and wit, as well as suggestive explications de texte. This is a very long and detailed book, in the door-stopper category but never for a minute dull. (The Spectator )
In some biographies, the biographer has to keep out of his subject's way. On virtually every page of this biography, Empson writes or says something startlingly interesting in his startlingly unusual way. (Adam Phillips, The Observer )
Few critics have done more for poetry than Empson (1906-1984); few have led stranger or more adventurous lives.... Empson's travels make entertaining reading.... The main reason for reading Empson's own writings is to see what he made of the authors he cherished. (He was the best reader Donne ever had.)... In an era when readers debate whether poetry matters, it helps to remember a man who defended it, and pursued his own arguments about it, even to the ends of the earth. (New York Times Book Review )
...a stunning demonstration of the power of intellectual biography (Ronald Shusterman, Universite de Provence )
'...measured and affectionate in tone, exhaustive in detail, lucid in the exposition of his difficult verse and often anguished life.' (Sam Leith, The Spectator )
Magisterial scholarship (Ruben Christiansen, The Spectator )
A magnificent biography. (Terry Eagleton, New Statesman )
A triumph. It is funny, dense, touching and farcical. This is an exhilarating tale. (Margaret Drabble, Books of the Year, TLS )
Haffenden is without doubt the world's foremost authority on the details of Empson's life. (Jason Harding, TLS )
'a magnificent biography... [a] grippingly readable volume'. (Terry Eagleton, New Statesman Books of the Year )
One of the finest biographies of an English literary figure. (James Wood, Guardian Review )
Magnificent and surprisingly gripping book, intelligently written, with a background of thorough research, well-illustrated and well-indexed. (Anthony Thwaite, Sunday Telegraph )
A wonderful book...Haffenden's research is exhilaratingly deep and wide, his feeling for both the work and the man is warm but always judicious, and his prose is a model of elegant, grown-up clarity, seasoned with quiet and civil wit. (Kevin Jackson, The Sunday Times )
Haffenden is the most genial of scholarly chroniclers, adopting a leisurely and discursive pace and tone that are appropriately Empsonian in warmth and wit, as well as suggestive explications de texte. This is a very long and detailed book, in the door-stopper category but never for a minute dull. (The Spectator )
In some biographies, the biographer has to keep out of his subject's way. On virtually every page of this biography, Empson writes or says something startlingly interesting in his startlingly unusual way. (Adam Phillips, The Observer )
Few critics have done more for poetry than Empson (1906-1984); few have led stranger or more adventurous lives.... Empson's travels make entertaining reading.... The main reason for reading Empson's own writings is to see what he made of the authors he cherished. (He was the best reader Donne ever had.)... In an era when readers debate whether poetry matters, it helps to remember a man who defended it, and pursued his own arguments about it, even to the ends of the earth. (New York Times Book Review )
The Sunday Telegraph, April 17, 2005
Magnificent and suprisingly gripping book, intellegently written, with a background of thorough research, well illustarted and well indexed.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
One of the Twentieth Century's quiet but influential intellectuals.,
By
This review is from: William Empson, Volume I: Among the Mandarins: Among the Mandarins v. 1 (Hardcover)
This is a hefty and absorbing first part of a 2 volume biography - the complete letters have also been recently published, and the second volume is due in October 2006.
It is absorbing for many reasons. Haffenenden's narrative tells the story of the Empson family, and in so doing gives us the decline of the late Nineteenth Century's land owning classes, English Public Schools (Empson was a Wykehamist), the prudery of Cambridge University (he was expelled when contraceptives were discovered in his suit case), academic work in China, his mathematical, poetical and critical development, as well as friendships with many of the leading figures of the age, particularly I A Richards and F R Leavis. Empson was an eccentric, a drinker, a lover - and despite the grinding collisions of the Great Powers, he remains unobtrusive, committed to his art and his friendships. Empson is not just another commentator telling us how it was or how it should have been, more the quiet reflector dedicated to his art - his apparent lack of ego is refreshing. Roll on Volume 2!
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