In one of the most comprehensive pictures of the poet yet published, James Booth examines the people, the places and the chance encounters that influenced Larkin and shaped his poetry. From Larkin's early life, his academic studies and his aspirations as a novelist, an image emerges of a reserved and gentle man greatly affected by those close to him. Delving into his fluctuating relationships with Maeve Brennan and Monica Jones, two of the many women...

"The first biography of Thom Gunn, a poet who could "give the dead a voice, make them sing" (Hilton Als, The New Yorker)"--

"A son's personal exploration of one of the most influential--and troubled--artistic couples of the twentieth century, Stephen Spender and Natasha Litvin"--

At the age of seventeen, after a childhood in an adopted family followed by six years in care homes, Norman Greenwood was given his birth certificate. He learned that his real name was not Norman. It was Lemn Sissay. He was British and Ethiopian. And he learned that his mother had been pleading for his safe return to her since his birth. Here Sissay recounts his life story. It is a story of neglect and determination. Misfortune and hope. Cruelty and...

"One of Britain's best-known and most loved poets, Wilfred Owen (1893-1918) was killed at age 25 on one of the last days of the First World War, having acted heroically as soldier and officer despite his famous misgivings about the war's rationale and conduct. He left behind a body of poetry that sensitively captured the pity, rage, valor, and futility of the conflict. In this new biography Guy Cuthbertson provides a fresh account of Owen's life and...

This collective biography of poets like Owen, Sassoon, Brooke, Graves, Rosenberg, Brittain, Sorley, and Seeger, along with potted biographies of many other war poets, gives the background of the poets' experiences to explain how the war created so much important poetry and why we keep coming back to this work a hundred years later.