A Book of Secrets
Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers
Format:Paperback
Publisher:Vintage Publishing
Published:3rd Nov '11
Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back
A masterfully atmospheric book of hidden lives and family secrets from the celebrated biographer
Taking the reader on a journey of discovery from Ravello to Paris, from Kirkstall Grange in Yorkshire to Vita Sackville-West's home at Knole, A Book of Secrets lucidly gives voice to fragile human connections.
A Book of Secrets is a masterfully atmospheric treasure-trove of hidden lives, uncelebrated achievements and family mysteries.
Acclaimed biographer Michael Holroyd peers into dusty corners to bring a company of unknown women into the light; Alice Keppel was the mistress of both the second Lord Grimthorpe and the Prince of Wales; Eve Fairfax was Lord Grimthorpe's abandoned fiancée and sometime muse of Auguste Rodin; and the novelist Violet Trefusis was the lover of Vita Sackville-West.
Taking the reader on a journey of discovery from Ravello to Paris, from Kirkstall Grange in Yorkshire to Vita Sackville-West's home at Knole, A Book of Secrets lucidly gives voice to fragile human connections.
A subtle paean to the art of biography. It is a biographical experiment, but a deeply humane and sensitive one. It glows with the energy of lives investigated, restored, reanimated and celebrated. -- Sarah Bakewell * Sunday Times *
Here, he has given us the distilled essence of biography and a fitting end to what he evokes as "the comedy of life". -- Lisa Appignanesi * Observer *
As is always the case with Holroyd, the reader comes away equally inspired, equally curious, and lavishly entertained by a story-teller of the first rank * Scotsman *
A small gem of humanity, curiosity and observation with a wonderful, rolling undercurrent of comedy * Sunday Telegraph *
Scintillating... Holroyd's book is a sly, inconclusive and utterly bewitching dance through the elusive narrative echoes that make up the biographer's art * Metro *
ISBN: 9780099548942
Dimensions: 198mm x 129mm x 18mm
Weight: 213g
304 pages