Erica Wagner

He is a boy growing up in rural Pennsylvania under the eye of a brutal, brilliant father. He is a young man at college, enduring the choices that have been made for him and finding brightness and beauty all the same. He is a soldier in a dreadful war who – despite that awful conflict – finds the extraordinary woman who was the love of his life, and her tale inextricably twines with his. He is an engineer who builds one of the great wonders of the modern world. His name is Washington Roebling. His life holds the possible and the impossible, what could be grasped and what could only be longed for. History holds one truth. Here is another. Forged in a brutal age, duty-bound to execute his domineering father’s vision of the life he must live, he joins forces with his brilliant wife Emily to overcome myriad obstacles to fulfilling his obligation, chief among them his own yearning to shed the burden of achieving a dream that was never his own. This is a book of growth, yearning, about the price of achievement, about the road not taken. Beads on the necklace of a life are strung together to create a composite portrait not only of Washington but of those who loved him: Emily of course, but Max too – a young man whose spirit will haunt him for the rest of his life. Here duty and desire, love and obligation, intersect and contradict each other. With subtle narrative and powerful, vivid prose it offers an invitation to enter a complex world, so that readers may see their own histories, their own choices, their own possibilities, mirrored in this compelling text. Wash is a richly imagined and intimate book about a singular life – built from as many intricately linked elements as the iconic Brooklyn Bridge that is its hero's lasting legacy.

Mary and Mr. Eliot is a twin portrait of T. S. Eliot and its author, the formidable Mary Trevelyan. In 1938 T. S. Eliot, already "a Classic in his lifetime," struck up a friendship with Mary Trevelyan. This passionately curious woman, an intrepid traveler who, like Eliot, was deeply involved in the affairs of the Church of England, served as the warden of the Student Movement House, mere yards from the poet and editor's office at Faber and Faber. Their relationship was domestic rather than artistic, characterized by churchgoing, conversation, record-playing, day trips to the English countryside with Mary at the wheel of the car Tom bought her, and Eliot cooking up sausages in his shirtsleeves. Over the years, their friendship deepened, and she came to believe it might grow into something more. Twice she proposed marriage, but Eliot always led her to understand that any such commitment would be impossible for him. Then the revelation of his long attachment to Emily Hale--and the sudden shock of his marriage to his secretary, Valerie Fletcher--caused a rupture between Trevelyan and the poet that could not be overcome. Mary Trevelyan left a unique chronicle--including diaries, letters, and pictures--that charts their twenty-year relationship. Now Erica Wagner has given it shape and context, bringing this untold story to light for the first time. Mary and Mr. Eliot is a tale of joy, misunderstanding, and betrayal that feels utterly modern and deeply human.

'Completely fascinating, revelatory . . . A classic of its kind.' WILLIAM BOYD'Compelling . . . compulsive.' MARGARET DRABBLE, NEW STATESMANT.S. Eliot and Mary Trevelyan shared a close friendship - twenty-five years in each others' company: playing records; going for drives with Mary at the wheel; sharing dinners Eliot cooked in his rolled-up shirtsleeves; and attending church together. While Mary hoped it might become something more, the poet's heart was elsewhere. Using a collection of diaries, letters and pictures Mary left behind, Erica Wagner brings together this story of an unusual friendship in this intimate portrait of T.S. Eliot and Mary, a formidable woman thus far sidelined by literary history.

Mary and Mr. Eliot is a twin portrait of T. S. Eliot and its author, the formidable Mary Trevelyan. In 1938 T. S. Eliot, already "a Classic in his lifetime," struck up a friendship with Mary Trevelyan. This passionately curious woman, an intrepid traveler who, like Eliot, was deeply involved in the affairs of the Church of England, served as the warden of the Student Movement House, mere yards from the poet and editor's office at Faber and Faber. Their relationship was domestic rather than artistic, characterized by churchgoing, conversation, record-playing, day trips to the English countryside with Mary at the wheel of the car Tom bought her, and Eliot cooking up sausages in his shirtsleeves. Over the years, their friendship deepened, and she came to believe it might grow into something more. Twice she proposed marriage, but Eliot always led her to understand that any such commitment would be impossible for him. Then the revelation of his long attachment to Emily Hale--and the sudden shock of his marriage to his secretary, Valerie Fletcher--caused a rupture between Trevelyan and the poet that could not be overcome. Mary Trevelyan left a unique chronicle--including diaries, letters, and pictures--that charts their twenty-year relationship. Now Erica Wagner has given it shape and context, bringing this untold story to light for the first time. Mary and Mr. Eliot is a tale of joy, misunderstanding, and betrayal that feels utterly modern and deeply human.

A rediscovered story of unrequited love which reveals an intimate new portrait of the poet T. S. Eliot - and of its author, a formidable woman sidelined by literary history.'Heartbreaking and wonderfully told.' Susan Hill, Spectator Books of the Year'Compelling ... compulsive.' Margaret Drabble, New StatesmanIn 1938 T.S. Eliot struck up a friendship with Mary Trevelyan, a passionately curious woman and intrepid traveller. Their relationship was cosy and domestic - characterised by churchgoing, record-playing, day trips with Mary at the wheel or Eliot in his rolled shirt-sleeves cooking up sausages for dinner. Over the years, Mary came to believe that their friendship might lead to something more . . . but their journey together did not end as she would have hoped.Trevelyan left a unique document - of diaries, letters and pictures - charting their twenty-year-long relationship in her vivid prose. Erica Wagner has brought this untold story together for the first time. Mary and Mr Eliot is a revelatory tale of joy, misunderstanding and betrayal that feels utterly modern and deeply human.

A New Statesman Book of the Year for 2017His father conceived of the Brooklyn Bridge, but it was Washington Roebling who built this iconic feat of human engineering after his father's tragic death. It has stood for more than 130 years and is now as much a part of New York as the Statue of Liberty or the Empire State Building. Yet, as recognisable as the bridge is, its builder is too often forgotten. The Chief Engineer is a brilliant examination of the life of one of America's most distinguished engineers. Roebling's experience as an engineer building bridges in the Union Army during the civil War has never before been documented, and played a central role in the bridge that links Brooklyn and Manhattan. The Brooklyn Bridge took fourteen dramatic years to complete, and the personal story that lay behind that construction is told here for the first time. The Chief Engineer is an engaging portrait of a brilliant and driven man, and of the era in which he lived. Meticulously researched, and written with revealing archival material only recently uncovered, including Washington Roebling's own memoir that was previously thought to be lost to history, in The Chief Engineer Erica Wagner relates the fascinating history of the bridge and its maker.

This short study guide tells you all you need to know about Angela Carter's The Bloody Chamber. Connell Guides are advanced guide books that offer sophisticated analysis and broad critical perspectives for higher-level GCSE and A Level English Literature students.

Raised by her father, Janet is shocked when she learns that she has inherited a house from her mother, long thought dead. The key in hand, Janet travels north to an old stone cottage at the sea's edge.Tom hides away in an old stone cottage at the sea's edge, waiting. He was raised by his mother, traveling from one place to another, his only stability the stories she told him stories of shape-shifters, danger, impossible love....When Janet arrives, she is surprised to find Tom and to find herself mysteriously drawn to him.In Erica Wagner's "haunting debut novel" (San Diego Union-Tribune), lives and stories become so interwoven that, in the end, all distinctions are lost. Reading group guide included."

When Ted Hughes's Birthday Letters was published in 1998, it was greeted with astonishment and acclaim, immediately landing on the bestseller list. Few suspected that Hughes had been at work for a quarter of a century on this cycle of poems addressed to his first wife, Sylvia Plath. In Ariel's Gift, Erica Wagner explores the destructive relationship between these two poets through their lives and their writings. She provides a commentary to the poems in Birthday Letters, showing the events that shaped them and, crucially, showing how they draw upon Plath's own work. "Both narratively engaging and scholastically comprehensive."--Thomas Lynch, Los Angeles Times "Wagner has set the poems of Hughes's Birthday Letters in the context of his marriage to Plath with great delicacy."--Times Literary Supplement