This original book gives a revealing picture of the extraordinarily talented group of men and women who produced Horizon, the foremost literary review of the 1940s. Published monthly in Bloomsbury, Horizon was a cultural beacon during the dark days of the Second World War; it was brilliantly eclectic and fiercely independent. Its principal editor, Cyril Connolly, regarded the pleasures of life and art as inseparable, cultivating his love of literature with the same intensity that characterized his love of good food and fine wine, and beautiful women. He published in Horizon the best and most influential writers of the period, among them W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, Arthur Koestler, George Orwell, Edith Sitwell, Dylan Thomas, Evelyn Waugh, and many others. The dedicated circle of friends assisting Connolly included Peter Watson, Horizon's sophisticated publisher who supported the magazine generously with money inherited from his millionaire father, and who - as art editor - introduced readers to important new works by such artists as Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and Henry Moore. Stephen Spender helped to start the magazine and the staff also included the ambitious Sonia Brownell who eventually married George Orwell, and Lys Lubbock - an engaging, attractive woman who became the business manager, and who lived with Connolly for most of the 1940s. Drawing on interviews and unpublished documents, Michael Shelden provides an intimate account of literary life in a fascinating period of history, skilfully recreating the world of Horizon, and bringing vividly to life the colourful individuals who made the magazine a legend in its time.

Friends of Promise: Cyril Connolly and the World of Horizon

SHELDEN, Michael

Biographies & Memoirs

Harper&Row

Traces Orwell's life and career, describing his school days, his experiences in the Spanish Civil War and as a police superintendent in Burma, the development of his writing, and his place in literary history

Orwell: The Authorized Biography

Arts & Literature

Harpercollins

Perennial

A new account of Herman Melville and the writing of Moby-Dick, written by a Pulitzer Prize finalist in Biography and based on fresh archival research, which reveals that the anarchic spirit animating Melville’s canonical work was inspired by his great love affair with a shockingly unconventional married woman.
Herman Melville’s epic novel, Moby-Dick, was a spectacular failure when it was published in 1851, effectively ending its author’s rise to literary fame. Because he was neglected by academics for so long, and because he made little effort to preserve his legacy, we know very little about Melville, and even less about what he called his “wicked book.” Scholars still puzzle over what drove Melville to invent Captain Ahab's mad pursuit of the great white whale.
In Melville in Love Pulitzer Prize-finalist Michael Shelden sheds light on this literary mystery to tell a story of Melville’s passionate, obsessive, and clandestine affair with a married woman named Sarah Morewood, whose libertine impulses encouraged and sustained Melville’s own. In his research, Shelden discovered unexplored documents suggesting that, in their shared resistance to the “iron rule” of social conformity, Sarah and Melville had forged an illicit and enduring romantic and intellectual bond. Emboldened by the thrill of courting Sarah in secret, the pleasure of falling in love, and the excitement of spending time with literary luminaries—like Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes and Nathaniel Hawthorne—Melville found the courage to take the leap from light works of adventure to the hugely brilliant, utterly subversive Moby-Dick.
Filled with the rich detail and immense drama of Melville’s secret life, Melville in Love tells the gripping story of how one of our greatest novelists found his muse.

Melville in Love: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick

Ecco

Reference

Physical description; xii, 254 p., [8] p. of plates : ill., ports., facsims. ; 24 cm. Notes; Bibliography : p. 246-248. Summary; This book about Cyril Connolly and the magazine "Horizon", is full of literary and social characters such as T.S.Eliot, Evelyn Waugh, Stephen Spender, Nancy Mitford, Brian Howard and George Orwell. Subjects; Connolly, Cyril (1903-1974). Connolly, Cyril (1903-1974) - Biography. Connolly, Cyril (1903-1974) - Correspondence. Horizon Magazine. Authors, English - 20th century - Biography. Journalists - England - Biography. English literature - Periodicals - 20th century. Journalists - England - 20th century - Biography. Horizon. English literature - 20th century - History and criticism. English literature - Connolly, Cyril - (1903-1974) - Biographies. biography, individual. journalism. press. war reporting. cultural and intellectual life. literature. Great Britain. UK. Second World War. individual newspapers. intellectual opinion. intellectual elitism. intellectual thought. Intellectualism. high-brow. intellectual life. literary history and criticism. biographical. Periodicals and transactions - British Isles. England - Literature. Literary studies: from (c. 1900-). Literary Criticism / General. Connolly, Cyril. Genres; Biography. Illustrated.

Friends of Promise

Hamish Hamilton Ltd.

This biography draws on a range of new sources, from a very candid letter giving evidence of Orwell's romantic attachments to other boys at Eton, to records in the India Office Library which alter the conventional view of his service in Burma.

George Orwell

William Heinemann, Ltd.

Graham Greene was devoted to intrigue and secrecy, and spent much time keeping inquisitive fans and critics at bay. There was apparently much to hide - a complex sex life, espionage adventures, dubious literary dealings and curious religious activities. In this biography, Sheldon tells the story of a divided life as dramatic and unsettling as Greene's fiction. The biographer has based his work on extensive interviews with scores of people who knew Greene well. This book also brings to light hundreds of new documents and letters; and provides a radical reinterpretation of the man's major works, including: "Brighton Rock", "The Power and the Glory", "The Heart of the Matter" and "The Third Man".

Graham Greene the Man Within

Reed Consumer Books

This original book gives a revealing picture of the extraordinarily talented group of men and women who produced Horizon, the foremost literary review of the 1940s. Published monthly in Bloomsbury, Horizon was a cultural beacon during the dark days of the Second World War; it was brilliantly eclectic and fiercely independent.  Its principal editor, Cyril Connolly, regarded the pleasures of life and art as inseparable, cultivating his love of literature with the same intensity that characterized his love of good food and fine wine, and beautiful women. He published in Horizon the best and most influential writers of the period, among them W. H. Auden, T. S. Eliot, Graham Greene, Arthur Koestler, George Orwell, Edith Sitwell, Dylan Thomas, Evelyn Waugh, and many others.  The dedicated circle of friends assisting Connolly included Peter Watson, Horizon's sophisticated publisher who supported the magazine generously with money inherited from his millionaire father, and who - as art editor - introduced readers to important new works by such artists as Francis Bacon, Lucian Freud, and Henry Moore. Stephen Spender helped to start the magazine and the staff also included the ambitious Sonia Brownell who eventually married George Orwell, and Lys Lubbock - an engaging, attractive woman who became the business manager, and who lived with Connolly for most of the 1940s.  Drawing on interviews and unpublished documents, Michael Shelden provides an intimate account of literary life in a fascinating period of history, skilfully recreating the world of Horizon, and bringing vividly to life the colourful individuals who made the magazine a legend in its time.

Faber and Faber

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by SHELDEN, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by SHELDEN, Michael

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by SHELDEN, Michael. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Friends of Promise: Cyril Connolly and the World of Horizon

Orwell: The Authorized Biography

Friends of Promise: Cyril Connolly and the World of Horizon

Orwell: The Authorized Biography

Melville in Love: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick

Melville in Love: The Secret Life of Herman Melville and the Muse of Moby-Dick

Friends of Promise

George Orwell

Graham Greene the Man Within

Friends of Promise: Cyril Connolly and the World of Horizon