Body Parts Essays on Life-Writing

Paperback (06 Mar 2008)

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Publisher's Synopsis

As readers, we seem to be increasingly fascinated by studies of individual lives. In this timely, unusual and exhilarating collection Hermione Lee is concerned in different ways with approaches to 'life-writing': the relation of biography to fiction and history; the exploration of writers' lives in connection with their works; the new and changing ways in which biographies, memoirs, diaries and autobiographies can be discussed.

As the title suggests, she also unravels the complex links between physical, sensual details and the 'body' of a work. 'Shelley's Heart and Pepys' Lobsters', for example, deals with myths, contested objects and things that go missing, while 'Jane Austen Faints' takes five varied accounts of the same dramatic moment to ask how biography deals with the private lives of famous women, a theme taken up in 'Virginia Woolf's Nose', on the way that the author's life-stories have been transformed into fiction and film.

Rich, diverting and entertaining, these brilliant studies by a leading critic and internationally acclaimed biographer raise profound and intriguing issues about every aspect of writing, and reading, a life.

About the Publisher

Pimlico

Established in 1991 Pimlico has become leading paperback publisher of specialised, award-winning, high-end non-fiction. Areas of interest cover Politics, for example Bernard Donohue's Downing Street Diaries Art, such as John Richardson's prize-winning biography of Picasso Biography, for example Norman Sherry's 3-part acclaimed biography of Graham Greene, and History, with authors such as Gillian Tindall, Charles Freeman and Anthony Read. Readable, informative, entertaining and important, Pimlico - with its easily recognizable spines and innovative design - publishes books that matter.

Book information

ISBN: 9781844137466
Publisher: Random House
Imprint: Pimlico
Pub date:
DEWEY: 809.93592
DEWEY edition: 23
Language: English
Number of pages: 245
Weight: 316g
Height: 232mm
Width: 154mm
Spine width: 19mm