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28 Paperbacks
Strindberg
A Life
Sue Prideaux
This mesmerising biography of
Strindberg, named the ‘greatest
genius of all modern dramatists’
by Eugene O’Neill, uncovers
the full story of his chaotic life
and his revolutionary writings.
Winner of the Pol Roger
Duff Cooper Prize for 2012
‘[A] rich and absorbing
biography … Writing the
biography of a frenzied, unstable genius like Strindberg is an
enormous challenge, and Prideaux rises to it with fine
authority.’ – John Carey, The Sunday Times
‘What an absolutely extraordinary man August Strindberg was,
and what a tormented, demented life he led! I haven’t read such
a fascinating biography for ages.’ – Sam Leith, Spectator
‘Prideaux is a deft guide to the absinthe-heavy bohemian
underworlds of Berlin and Paris which Strindberg inhabited for
much of the 1890s.’ – Claudia FitzHerbert, Daily Telegraph
Sue Prideaux is a writer living in Sussex. Her book Edvard
Munch: Behind the Scream won the James Tait Black Memorial
Prize in biography and is published by Yale.
July 352 pp. 234x156mm. 20 colour + 50 b/w illus.
PB ISBN 978-0-300-19806-5 £12.99*
Leon Trotsky
A Revolutionary’s Life
Joshua Rubenstein
Leon Trotsky was both a
world-class intellectual and a
man capable of the most
narrow-minded ideological
dogmatism. In Joshua
Rubenstein’s interpretation,
Trotsky emerges as a brilliant
and brilliantly flawed man –
mentally acute and impatient
with others, a fine student of
politics who refused to engage
in the nitty-gritty of party organisation in the 1920s when Stalin
was manoeuvering towards Trotsky’s own political oblivion.
‘Achieves the mixture of empathy and critical distance that a
good biographer needs.’ – Sheila Fitzpatrick, Guardian
‘Rubenstein handles complex issues sensitively in this
accessible introduction to a flawed but fascinating 20thcentury
giant.’ – John McIlroy, Times Higher Education
Joshua Rubenstein is the northeast regional director of Amnesty
International USA and a longtime associate at Harvard
University’s Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies.
Jewish Lives
October 240 pp. 210x140mm. 1 b/w illus.
PB ISBN 978-0-300-19832-4 £10.99*
Rights sold: Romanian and Spanish
John Keats
A New Life
Nicholas Roe
Filled with revelations and
insights, this definitive book
presents a portrait of the beloved
Romantic poet and shows how
previously unrecognised turning
points in his life provide fresh
keys to his works.
‘Roe’s is a remarkable
achievement, authoritative and
imaginative to a degree that
should make all future Keats biographers quail.’
– John Carey, The Sunday Times
‘Roe reconstructs beautifully the milieu from which [Keats]
and his friends all came, on the northern edge of the city
where they had their day jobs and dreamed of fame.’
– Ferdinand Mount, Spectator
‘[Keats] is recast in this highly energetic life not as the ‘sickly
boy’ of tradition but as a much more ‘vigorous, colourful and
animated’ figure … Roe is sensitive about the poetry, and writes
with real panache, in a book that is driven by his contagious
enthusiasm for his subject.’ – Andrew Holgate, The Sunday Times
Nicholas Roe is professor of English, University of
St. Andrews. He is the author of numerous biographical
and critical works on writers of the Romantic period.
June 480 pp. 198x129mm. 65 b/w illus.
PB ISBN 978-0-300-19727-3 £10.99*
Robespierre
A Revolutionary Life
Peter McPhee
Was Robespierre a heroic
martyr or a bloodthirsty
tyrant? McPhee reevaluates
‘the Terror’, what Robespierre
intended, and whether it
represented an abandonment
or a reversal of his early
liberalism and sense of justice.
‘Peter McPhee’s fine new life
of Robespierre relies on the
first hand, day-to-day accounts rather than the posthumous
vilification and hagiography, and in it emerges a quite
different portrait of the man.’ – Stuart Kelly, Scotsman
‘McPhee brilliantly evokes the weaknesses as well as the
strengths of this thin-skinned, diminutive figure, who
suffered recurrent bouts of nervous exhaustion and withdrew
from the fray at vital moments. As this stimulating book
shows, those who come to play a leading part in times of
upheaval are shaped by events rather than controlling them.’
– Malcolm Crook, BBC History Magazine
Peter McPhee is a professorial fellow at the University of
Melbourne. He has published widely, including most recently
Living the French Revolution, 1789–1799.
October 320 pp. 198x129mm. 32 b/w illus.
PB ISBN 978-0-300-19724-2 £12.99*
Rights sold: Italian, Japanese, Spanish and Turkish