Kirjahaku

Boswell's life of Johnson is incontestably one of the great biographies in the English language. And yet not even it can give a completely rounded portrait. It is for that reason Hugh Kingsmill hit upon the idea of assembling this alternative anthology: Samuel Johnson as recalled diversely by those including Johnson himself, Mrs Piozzi, Sir John Hawkins, Anna Seward (not flattering) and Miss Reynolds, Sir Joshua's sister. Here is an example from the latter:'One Sunday morning, as I was walking with him in Twickenham meadows, he began his antics both with his feet and his hands, with the latter as if he was holding the reins of a horse like a jockey on full speed. But to describe the positions of his feet is a strange task; sometimes he would make the back part of his heels to touch, sometimes his toes, as he was aiming at making the form of a triangle, at least the two sides of one. Though indeed, whether these were his gestures on this particular occasion in Twickenham meadows I do not recollect, it is so long since, but I well remember that they were so extraordinary that men, women and children gathered round him laughing. At last we sat down on some logs of wood by the river side, and they nearly dispersed; when he pulled out of his pocket Grotius De Veritate Religionis, over which he seesawed at such a violent rate as to excite the curiosity of some people at distance to come and see what was the matter with him.'This is richly readable and informative volume offering an endlessly fascinating conspectus of the Great Man. It is being reissued at the same time as Hugh Kingsmill biography of Samuel Johnson.

Samuel Johnson was first published in 1934. It is being reissued to mark the 300th anniversary of Johnson's birth and the sixtieth anniversary of Hugh Kingsmill's death.In the words of Richard Ingrams, 'Samuel Johnson was the only biography of Kingsmill's written in a spirit of sympathy with his subject and it is for that reason the most successful of his books and must rank as one of the best short biographies of Johnson. Kingsmill had much in common with Johnson. He expressed himself best in company with others and found writing an arduous task; the circumstances of his life were unfortunate and he had the same habit as Johnson of almost courting discomfort.'Also being reissued at the same time is Hugh Kingsmill's anthology Johnson without Boswell.

Hugh Kingsmill wrote over thirty books, and his highly praised biography of Frank Harris is one of four of his books to be reissued by Faber Finds, to mark the sixtieth anniversary of his death.'An extremely fine piece of work ... out of this candid recognition of weakness there comes a living portrait which has made at least one reader who found Frank Harris's personality violently antipathetic understand why a great many people adored him and forgave him.' Rebecca West Daily Telegraph'Hugh Kingsmill's biography of Frank Harris ... is adroit, rather malicious and very entertaining. Little did poor Harris realise, when he was busy roaring his own praises at this young man, that he would be served up with such sauce.' J. B. Priestley Evening Standard'Kingsmill's biography is neither an adulation nor an attack: it is a record of a 'queer cuss', flashy, magnetic, enormously gifted with everything save principle ...[Harris] skilfully hunts down the spoor of probable fact in the extraordinary tangle of romantic make-believe which Harris planted over his own tracks.' Observer

'Behind the big names of twentieth-century literature there stands a shadow cabinet of writers waiting to take over once the Wind of Change has blown. My own vote goes to Hugh Kingsmill as leader of this opposition.' That was the memorable opening to Michael Holroyd's introduction to The Best of Hugh Kingsmill. After Puritanism, 1850-1900 provides strong evidence for such a judgment. The book comprises four essays and their purpose is best explained by Hugh Kingsmill himself:'In From Shakespeare to Dean Farrar the points touched upon are the revolt, in Victorian emotionalism over the young, against the Puritan doctrine of general depravity, the growing sense of Christ's humanity, and he rejection of eternal punishment: in Samuel Butler, the attack on the Puritan theory of the family, and the questioning of Christian morality as well as Christian theology: in Frank Harris, the chaos of late Victorian values, the question of complete verbal licence in literature, and the reappearance of Shakespeare as a human being: in W. T. Stead, the attempt of a Puritan born too late to simplify the modern world. First published in 1929, it has been out of print for a long time. George Orwell thought highly of it and tried unsuccessfully to get it reissued. Belated though it may be, Faber Finds is happy to bring about his wish.

First published in 1949, The Progress of a Biographer follows a general principle that there are absolute truths, which an individual can in some degree apprehend and live by, but which churches and institutions can only obscure and pervert. This principle is followed for the sketches in this book, most of which were written between the end of World War II and the spring of 1948. The subjects range from P. G. Wodehouse to Karl Marx, from W. B. Yeats to Thackeray, and from Rainer Maria Rilke to Lloyd George. Believing that to understand a man’s work, one must form a coherent impression of the man, the author has tried to suggest the leading characteristics and governing impulses of his subjects. His intention has been to clarify rather than to criticise, though doubtless the affect may sometimes be one of criticism falling short of clarification. The book will be of interest to students across disciplines but will particularly appeal to students of English literature.

First published in 1949, The Progress of a Biographer follows a general principle that there are absolute truths, which an individual can in some degree apprehend and live by, but which churches and institutions can only obscure and pervert. This principle is followed for the sketches in this book, most of which were written between the end of World War II and the spring of 1948. The subjects range from P. G. Wodehouse to Karl Marx, from W. B. Yeats to Thackeray, and from Rainer Maria Rilke to Lloyd George. Believing that to understand a man’s work, one must form a coherent impression of the man, the author has tried to suggest the leading characteristics and governing impulses of his subjects. His intention has been to clarify rather than to criticise, though doubtless the affect may sometimes be one of criticism falling short of clarification. The book will be of interest to students across disciplines but will particularly appeal to students of English literature.