The absorbing portrait of a man who shaped the literary landscape as we know it
Helen Smith lives in Norfolk and teaches non-fiction and modern literature at the University of East Anglia. The Uncommon Reader- A Life of Edward Garnett is her first book; it received a RSL-Jerwood Award for Non-Fiction in 2011.
Rich in anecdote and knowledge, this is an exceptional biography of
an exceptional human being.
*Sunday Times*
[I]t rescues from obscurity one of the great English literary
taste-makers of the twentieth century, and in the process sheds new
light on some important writers, paints a portrait of the London
publishing scene that remained largely unchanged until the big
corporate buy-ups of the 1980s and 90s, and presents a character --
Garnett himself -- who is interesting, charming and impressive.
*Times Literary Supplement*
Essential reading for anyone who cares about modernism.
*Sunday Times **Literature Book of the Year 2017***
Well-researched, neatly written and not above the occasional flash
of sly humour.
*Guardian*
There is a nugget on every page of Smith’s biography. She spirits
up the whole jealous, bitching, scribbling literary world of the
age.
*The Times*
Helen Smith is to be congratulated on having written a masterly and
highly readable biography of Edward Garnett ... The Uncommon Reader
is required reading.
*Literary Review*
A superb biography of Edward Garnett ... Smith has an eye for the
telling detail ... and her book paints a textured picture of what
life was like for people of Garnett’s milieu ... Readers will end
up loving Garnett. With Smith’s fine sense of pacing and a
fascinating subject, her book both delights and informs.
*Publishers Weekly STARRED REVIEW*
A sensitive biography of an influential editor and critic ... In
her assured literary debut, Smith ... draws on Garnett's copious
correspondence, critical writings, and memoirs of those who knew
him to create a finely etched portrait of a man who exerted a
quiet, decisive influence on arts and letters.
*Kirkus*
An alternative history of British modernism.
*The Tablet*
A very rounded and humane portrait.
*Irish Independent*
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