The second and final installment of Stannard's monumental, definitive biography (Evelyn Waugh, 1987) of one of the 20th century's most accomplished—and, apparently, misanthropic— writers. Stannard (English/Univ. of Leicester) incorporates hundreds of previously unpublished documents and unreported interviews in picking up Waugh's tale on the eve of WW II. Britain plunges into the war, and Waugh wangles his way into one of the elite (i.e., aristocrat-led) military units. Thus, army life did nothing to temper Waugh's all-pervasive hauteur. His military career, however, was little short of disastrous, as the writer—surly, snobbish, and almost perpetually soused—was deemed unfit to command a regiment, a fact that rankled and eventually embittered him. With war's end, Waugh's most subtly wrought novel, Brideshead Revisited, was published to widespread acclaim both in Britain and the US. Royalties poured in, and the author was launched on a spendthrift's path to penury. The Loved One, a satire of America's bizarre funerary fashions, proved an even greater success in 1948, and soon Waugh was moving in exalted circles. His fellow-Catholic author Graham Greene was an intimate; Thomas Merton confided in him; Ian Fleming's wife, Ann, according to Stannard no slouch herself at backbiting, kept Waugh supplied with vicious gossip. An especially engrossing section here deals with Waugh's bout with psychosis, during which he heard voices accusing him of worthlessness and perversity. Stannard's depiction of his subject's unconventional home life is equally revealing. A no-holds-barred yet ultimately moving portrait of a major literary talent. (Photographs—not seen.)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1992
ISBN: 0-393-03412-7
Page Count: 512
Publisher: Norton
Review Posted Online: June 24, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 1992
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
This is not the Nutcracker sweet, as passed on by Tchaikovsky and Marius Petipa. No, this is the original Hoffmann tale of 1816, in which the froth of Christmas revelry occasionally parts to let the dark underside of childhood fantasies and fears peek through. The boundaries between dream and reality fade, just as Godfather Drosselmeier, the Nutcracker's creator, is seen as alternately sinister and jolly. And Italian artist Roberto Innocenti gives an errily realistic air to Marie's dreams, in richly detailed illustrations touched by a mysterious light. A beautiful version of this classic tale, which will captivate adults and children alike. (Nutcracker; $35.00; Oct. 28, 1996; 136 pp.; 0-15-100227-4)
Pub Date: Oct. 28, 1996
ISBN: 0-15-100227-4
Page Count: 136
Publisher: Harcourt
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 1996
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