'A masterpiece which delights from first page to last.' TLS 'Very clever, very funny and very bold.' Victoria Glendinning, Times Born in 1894 to a well-off military family, Gerard Brenan was expected to follow the family tradition. But at Radley school he discovered a love of books and an urge to break the mould, which led him to abscond to Europe for six months. After the First World War he went to Spain, where he found the inspiration for his life's work (and began an affair with Dora Carrington.) Come the 1930s his life changed again, with marriage and the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War, which inspired his masterpiece The Spanish Labyrinth (1943). Drawing on long personal acquaintance as well as a wealth of unpublished correspondence, Jonathan Gathorne-Hardy looks unflinchingly at the whole of this remarkable man of letters - from his venturesome spirit to his troublesome sexuality to his literary accomplishment. 'By no means unworthy to stand beside P N Furbank's Forster, Michael Holroyd's Strachey or Quentin Bell's Woolf... Affectionate but acerbic, learned but witty, elegant but relaxed, [Gathorne-Hardy] entertains as consistently as he informs.' Independent on Sunday

Samuel Beckett's Poetry is the first book-length study of Beckett's complete poetry, designed for students and scholars of twentieth century poetry and literature, as well as for specialists of Beckett's work. This volume explores how poetry provided Beckett a medium of expression during key moments in his life, from his earliest attempts at securing a reputation as a published writer, to the work of restoring his own speech while suffering aphasia shortly before his death. Often these were moments of desperation and discouragement, when more substantial works were not possible: moments of illness, of personal loss or of public disaster. This volume includes an introduction that contextualizes Beckett as a poet and a chronology of the composition and publication of all his known poems. Essays offer a range of critical perspectives, from translation theory, war poetics and Irish Studies to Beckett's debts to Modernism, Romanticism and the Jazz Age.

A Culture of Its Own: Taking Latin America Seriously presents Mark Falcoff's essays on the region. Many of them are contentious; none of them are dull. He ranges from bilingualism to the cult of Garcia Lorca, from U.S.-Cuban relations to Chile's curious love affair with Germany. On more than one occasion, Falcoff takes aim at American journalism and scholarship, both of which, he argues, have all too often produced a fantasy version of Latin America which reflects our own national narcissism rather than genuine curiosity about the other. Latin America, Falcoff argues, is not merely a geographical extension of the United States, or a kind of downmarket version of the American Southwest. It is a culture all its own, with its own historical memory, sensibility, and worldview. Its achievements -and its miseries-are also its own, not the end-product of policies made by the Pentagon, Wall Street, or the CIA. Falcoff writes about the region with originality, iconoclastic wit, and distinctive literary flair. His volume will interest Latin American specialists, diplomats, and journalists as well as those general readers who think they are not interested in Latin America-or who only suspect they might be, but don't know quite where to start.

"Published in collaboration with the Ca'anada Blanch Centre for Contemporary Spanish Studies."

Explores the relationship between Britain and the Spanish Civil War. This book explains the war's legacy and longer-term impact on Britain, and presents a chronological progression from the Civil War to the post-war Franco era. It also provides a discussion of the importance of loss and memory.

Publisher description

Just when it may seem that nothing else could be said about Virginia Woolf and the ambiguous details of her suicide, "Afterwords" provides an entirely fresh perspective. It makes available to a wide readership for the first time letters sent to Leonard Woolf and Vanessa Bell (Virginia Woolf's sister) in the aftermath of the event. This unique volume brings together over two hundred letters from T. S. Eliot, H. G. Wells, May Sarton, Vita Sackville-West, Edith Sitwell, E. M. Forster, Radclyffe Hall, and many others, including political figures and religious leaders. In addition, informative annotations reveal the identities of many unexpected condolence-letter writers from among the general public.

This long-awaited second volume of Russell's best letters reveals the inner workings of a philosophical genius and an impassioned campaigner for peace and social reform. The letters, only three of which have been published before, cover most of Russell's adult life, a period in which he wrote over thirty books, including his famous History of Western Philosophy. Richly illustrated with photographs from Russell's life, the collection includes letters to Ho Chi Minh, Tito, Jawaharlal Nehru and Albert Einstein.

This second volume of letters, only three of which have been published before, presents a picture of a philosophical genius and impassioned campaigner for peace and social reform. Includes letters to Ho Chi Minh, Tito, Jawahral Nehru and Sartre.