UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND AUTHOR · HISTORY AND CRITICISM · DRAMA
John Leslie Palmer
Also known as: Palmer, John Leslie, John Palmer
John Leslie Palmer (4 September 1885, Paddington, London – 5 August 1944) was an English author. Under his own name, he wrote extensively about early English actors and about British literary figures. He also wrote fiction as Christopher Haddon, and with Hilary Saint George Saunders under the collaborative pseudonyms Francis Beeding, David Pilgrim, and John Somers.
Most acclaimed
Ben Jonson
Though he is one of the undisputed giants of English literature, Ben Jonson is known to most people only as the author of one or two masterly plays which regularly appear in the drama repertory. He is much less well-known for his whole oeuvre, which encompasses poetry, criticism, masque-making, and a lfetime of linguistic and lexicographical study. In this new book, Rosalind Miles, author of the widely acclaimed Ben Jonson: His Life and Work, presents a comprehensive critical study of the whole of Jonson's output from his earliest beginnings through to the final achievement. Looking at every word he ever wrote, in drama, masque, poetry, philosophy and literary criticism, she reveals a far more interesting and more varied picture of Jonson than we are accustomed to--not the accomplished artist so much as the struggling craftsman. In telling the story of Jonson's creative career, Rosalind Miles does justice to the whole of his magnificent and varied oeuvre, whose range is so little known to the general reader and which can still surprise literary specialists. This detailed portrait of the growth and development of a creative artist unique in his own time and rare in any other shows that the more we know, the more there is in Jonson to admire. As we see him at work, share his struggle with form and content, with reader and audience, and experience the erratic pattern of his failure and success, he emerges as a much more truthful and vital figure than the Jonson of literary and critical tradition. Written with life and vigour, and informed with the author's life-long passion for the work of Jonson, the book is a superb introduction to Jonson for students and general readers alike. The only scholarly critical study which covers everything Jonson ever wrote, it will also prove an invaluable work of reference for scholars and libraries.
Rudyard Kipling
Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936) remains one of the most popular British authors of all time. In this controversial new biography he is subjected to the psychological scrutiny for which Martin Seymour-Smith is celebrated, and the personality that emerges is quite different from the traditional image of the Laureate of the Empire portrayed by past critics. Born in Bombay, Kipling spent much of his childhood with foster parents in Southsea, and went to school in Westward Ho! before returning to India as a journalist. In 1889 he came back to England, via the Far East and the USA, and cemented the success he had enjoyed through his writing in India. In 1892 he married, and settled in Vermont for four years. It was here that he wrote his most famous work, The Jungle Book. After further travels and a spell at Rottingdean, Kipling moved to Bateman's in Sussex, where he lived for the rest of his life. In 1907 he became the first British author to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Martin Seymour-Smith explores beyond this exterior of conventional respectability and discovers territory uncharted by previous biographers -- all of whom have preserved the myth. He examines Kipling's life and work with rigor and insight, and unfolds the extraordinary and deeply moving story of this much-loved and much-criticized author who has come to occupy his own special place in the canon of English literature. Kipling can never be the same again. - Jacket flap.