Angus Wilson: A Biography

by Margaret Drabble

Book Overview

The first biography of literary lion (ANGLO-SAXON ATTITUDES) and gay pioneer Angus Wilson (1913-1991), captured brilliantly by one of our greatest novelists. In this vivid and absorbing biography,... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0312142765
• ISBN13: 9780312142766
• Release Date: May 1996
• Publisher: St. Martin's Press
• Length: 716 Pages
• Weight: 2.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 2.1" x 6.5" x 9.5"

Customer Reviews

Fascinating But Sad

Drabble's biography of Angus Wilson should be sold in a set along with Andrew Motion's biography of Philip Larkin. Together they represent the best of biographical writing in the English language in recent years. Wilson, unlike Larkin, has lost popularity of late. His prose seems dated in ways not easily explained by those, like Drabble, who appreciate it. Still, Wilson is a major post-war figure, popular on both sides of the Atlantic for some three decades as a novelist and biographer, chiefly of Dickens and Kipling. Drabble and many other contemporary writers studied with Wilson for a time, but he never secured a proper position. His biography is a great object lesson for novelists who quit their day jobs too soon; although able to make it for a time, Wilson's last years were rather hard-going. He drank his share of champagne for years, but in the end was scarcely able to turn out a meal. If ever there was a need for gay marriage, Wilson's life proves why.