One climbed to the very top of the social ladder, the otherchose to live among tramps. One was a celebrity at twenty-three,the other virtually unknown until his dying days. One wasright-wing and religious, the other a socialist and an atheist.Yet, as this ingenious and important new book reveals, at the heartof their lives and writing, Evelyn Waugh and George Orwell wereessentially the same man. Orwell is best known for "Animal Farm"and "1984," Waugh for "Brideshead Revisited" and comic novels like"Scoop" and "Vile Bodies." How ever different they may seem, thesetwo towering figures of twentieth-century literature are linked forthe first time in this engaging and unconventional biography, whichgoes beyond the story of their amazing lives to reach the core oftheir beliefs-a shared vision that was startlingly prescient aboutour own troubled times. Both Waugh and Orwell were born in 1903,into the same comfortable stratum of England's class-obsessedsociety. But at first glance they seem to have lived
From Hermione Lee, the internationally acclaimed, award-winningbiographer of Virginia Woolf and Willa Cather , comesa superb reexamination of one of the most famous American women ofletters. Delving into heretofore untapped sources, Lee does away with theimage of the snobbish bluestocking and gives us a new EdithWharton-tough, startlingly modern, as brilliant and complex as herfiction. Born into a wealthy family, Wharton left America as anadult and eventually chose to create a life in France. Her renownednovels and stories have become classics of American literature, butas Lee shows, Wharton's own life, filled with success and scandal,was as intriguing as those of her heroines. Bridging two centuriesand two very different sensibilities, Wharton here comes to life inthe skillful hands of one of the great literary biographers of ourtime.
The author of seven highly acclaimed books, Joseph J. Ellishas crafted a landmark biography that brings to life in all hiscomplexity the most important and perhaps least understood figurein American history, George Washington. With his careful attentionto detail and his lyrical prose, Ellis has set a new standard forbiography. Drawing from the newly catalogued Washington papers at theUniversity of Virginia, Joseph Ellis paints a full portrait ofGeorge Washington’s life and career–from his military years throughhis two terms as president. Ellis illuminates the difficulties thefirst executive confronted as he worked to keep the emergingcountry united in the face of adversarial factions. He richlydetails Washington’s private life and illustrates the ways in whichit influenced his public persona. Through Ellis’s artful narration,we look inside Washington’s marriage and his subsequent entranceinto the upper echelons of Virginia’s plantation society. We cometo understand that it was by managing his ow
A highly original, stirring book on Mahatma Gandhi that deepensour sense of his achievements and disappointments—his success inseizing India’s imagination and shaping its independence struggleas a mass movement, his recognition late in life that few of hisfollowers paid more than lip service to his ambitious goals ofsocial justice for the country’s minorities, outcasts, and ruralpoor. Pulitzer Prize–winner Joseph Lelyveld shows invivid, unmatched detail how Gandhi’s sense of mission, socialvalues, and philosophy of nonviolent resistance were shaped onanother subcontinent—during two decades in South Africa—and thentested by an India that quickly learned to revere him as a Mahatma,or “Great Soul,” while following him only a small part of the wayto the social transformation he envisioned. The man himself emergesas one of history’s most remarkable self-creations, a prosperouslawyer who became an ascetic in a loincloth wholly dedicated topolitical and social action. Lelyveld leads us step-
The first account—prodigiously researched, richly detailed—ofthe last remarkable twenty-five years of the life and art of one ofAmerica’s greatest and most beloved musical icons. Much has been written about Louis Armstrong, but most of itfocuses on the early and middle stages of his long career. Now,Ricky Riccardi—jazz scholar and musician—takes an in-depth look atthe years in which Armstrong was often dismissed as a buffoon?ish,if popular, entertainer, and shows us instead the inventiveness anddepth of expression that his music evinced during this time. These are the years (from after World War II until his death in1971) when Armstrong entertained crowds around the world andrecorded his highest-charting hits, including “Mack the Knife” and“Hello, Dolly”; years when he collaborated with, among others, EllaFitzgerald, Duke Ellington, and Dave Brubeck; when he recorded withstrings and big bands, and, of course, with the All-Stars, hisprimary performing ensemble for more than
