Table of Contents

Preface Prologue London, 1911 A Clash of Wills An Island of Serenity Friendship and Poetry The Gurney Family Golden Days A Lad's Love The First Breakdown The Lost Year The Experiment A Partnership The Dirty Business of War Blighty 'Love has come to bind me fast' 'You would rather know me dead...' An Uncertain Course A New Mastery The Tide of Darkness 'There is dreadful hell within me...' Asylum -- 'the soul halts here' The Last Chance 'A fantastic mix-up' Bitter Troubles and Suffering 'In time to come' Epilogue Appendices Bibliography Index

Reviews

In the cruelly brief space allotted to him, Gurney achieved something lapidary and touching: he reigns as the supreme miniaturist of twentieth century British music. * MUSIC & LETTERS *
[A] fine biography. [...] This biography should go some way toward bringing Ivor Gurney back into our ken. That it suggest we ought to know more about Marion Scott is also useful. * FANFARE MAGAZINE *
A remarkable new biography [...] that fans of Ivor Gurney will certainly appreciate. Blevins has spared no detailed, which makes the book riveting from cover to cover. * SUITE101 *
This new biography...comes as near as we're likely to get to the whole story. For Pamela Blevins has not only researched, sifted and assessed every available source with enormous diligence, but she has brought to the foreground the hitherto under-exposed figure of writer and musicologist Marion Scott, and has thus both widened the lens and concentrated the focus of Gurney studies...both Gurney and Scott [are restored] to their rightful place in musical history. * BBC MUSIC MAGAZINE *
The material about Scott is...invaluable...and the book as a whole, with its superb photographs, will prove a vital source for future researchers. * TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT *
Draw[s] extensively on the published letters as well as on a good deal of fresh research including an informative investigation of Gurney's bipolar condition...Blevins brings a journalistic zeal to the interaction of these two lives. * GRAMOPHONE *
A striking account of two lives bound inextricably together...beautifully produced and lavishly illustrated. * FRIENDS OF THE DYMOCK POETS NEWSLETTER *
This remarkable volume is a penetrating reassessment of Ivor Gurney...but more than that, a searching consideration of the life and achievements of Marion Scott. * CHORAL JOURNAL *