Man of the North: 1869-1908

The Unknown Matisse

Astonishing and essential, the biography that reclaimed Henri Matisse from history's slanders and restored his place in the canon of the 20th century's greatest artists 
 
Before acclaimed biographer Hilary Spurling turned her attention to Henri Mattise, precious few facts were known about his life - and those few were distorted by inaccuracy, misunderstanding and glaring gaps. The Unknown Matisse investigates the secret life of The Wild Beast (as he was known), whose early paintings shocked and enraged his contemporaries. It tells the story of an innovative genius, born in war-torn, poverty-stricken Flanders who finally overcame hardship and disaster to fulfil Van Gogh's prophecy: 'The painter of the future will be such a colourist as has never yet been.'

Hilary Spurling is the author of numerous biographies, including Ivy When Young: The Early Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett 1884-1919; Paul Scott: A Life; a two-volume biography of Matisse, The Unknown Matisse and Matisse the Master (also published in the abridged single-volume Matisse: The Life); and Burying the Bones. She won the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize and the Duff Cooper Prize for Ivy When Young, the Whitbread Book of the Year Award for Matisse the Master, and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Burying the Bones. She grew up in Bristol and studied at the University of Oxford. From 1964 to 1970 she was Theatre Critic and Literary Editor of the Spectator, and since then she has been a regular book reviewer for the Observer and the Daily Telegraph. In 2016 she won the Biographers' Club Lifetime Achievement Award.

&quot;Hilary Spurling's THE UNKNOWN MATISSE is a truly wonderful biography. Her prose is muscular, rhythmical, carrying a lot of information, yet swift, enthralling. She has done for Matisse what George Painter famously did for Proust in the 1950s. Besides being a first-rate scholar, she is an artist in narrative who has unearthed a fascinating story and told it brilliantly. I rate this first volume with the first volume of Richard Holmes's COLERIDGE . Both books mark a climax in what has been called a golden age of modern biography which began with Richard Ellman's JAMES JOYCE. It is a terrific achievement.&quot; Michael Holroyd

A Life of Henri Matisse: 1909-1954

Matisse the Master

The Whitbread Book of the Year 2005 and shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2005.

Winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year 2005 
Shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize 2005 
 
The second in Hilary Spurling's sweeping, two-volume biography of Henri Matisse, one of the most influential and beloved artists of the twentieth century 
 
This fascinating exploration of Matisse's world uncovers the secret life of the artist, whose paintings shocked his contemporaries while paving the way for modern art. Tracing the artist's story through growing maturity and success, Matisse the Master unveils the intimate relationship between his life and his work. Spanning from 1909 to 1954, this triumphant second volume in Spurling's essential biography captures the glory years of Henri Matisse.

In this astounding book (winner of the Whitbread Book of the Year 2005) Hilary Spurling's fascinating exploration of Matisse's world uncovers the secret life of the artist, whose paintings shocked and infuriated his contemporaries while paving the way for modern art. This beautifully presented second volume tells the story of Matisse's growing artistic maturity and the relationship between his life and art from 1909 to 1954, his glory years.

The Life

Matisse

'Inspired, innovative, remarkable' Independent 
 
'Spurling has done better than anyone else at uncovering intimate information about Matisse' Guardian 
 
The abridged, one-volume edition of Hilary Spurling's critically acclaimed biography of Henri Matisse, one of the greatest artistic geniuses of the twentieth century 
 
Henri Matisse was one of the most important and beloved artists of the twentieth century, rivalled only by his friend and competitor Pablo Picasso. Hilary Spurling's The Unknown Matisse and Matisse the Master were together heralded as the definitive biography of the artist, and Matisse the Master went on to win the Whitbread Book of the Year award in 2005. 
 
This essential abridged edition of the Life reveals the origins of Matisse's astonishing talent, provides a unique insight into his life and work, and, by documenting the difficult path he took alone, clearly places him at the front rank of those who made art modern.

Spurling at her brilliant best as passionate scholar, traveller and storyteller . . . Lavishly illustrated and lovingly well written'

An outstanding biography, as full of insights into the pictures as it is revealing about the man

Destined to remain the standard biography for a long time. Spurling has done better than anyone else at uncovering intimate information about Matisse

Henri Matisse was one of the most important and beloved artists of the twentieth century, rivalled only by his friend - and competitor - Pablo Picasso. Hilary Spurling's The Unknown Matisse and Matisse the Master were together heralded as the definitive biography of the artist, and Matisse the Master went on to win the Whitbread Book of the Year award in 2005. 
 
In this abridged, one-volume edition, Hilary Spurling reveals the origins of Matisse's astonishing talent, provides a unique insight into his life and work, and, by documenting the difficult path he took alone, clearly places him at the front rank of those who made art modern.

Invitation To The Dance

An invaluable companion to A Dance to the Music of Time

Hilary Spurling's exhaustive analysis of the novel's characters supplies a master-key for the reader

Hilary Spurling won the Rose Mary Crawshay Prize for The Early Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett 1884-1919, and the Duff Cooper Prize and Heinemann Award for Secrets of a Woman's Heart: The Later Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett 1920-1969. She is also the author of Elinor Fettiplace's Receipt Book, Paper Spirits and The Girl from the Fiction Department:  A Portrait of Sonia Orwell. She has been Arts and Literary Editor of the Spectator, and a regular reviewer for the Observer, the New York Times and the Daily Telegraph.

A unique reference book for all fans of Anthony Powell's 12-volume novel, A Dance to the Music of Time, which has become a literary landmark of twentieth-century writing. More than a simple glossary, Invitation to the Dance contains extensive Character, Book, Painting and Place indices, creating a magnificent database of Powell's imagination and England's cultural landscape.  This is a masterpiece of 'extreme ingenuity' detailing over four hundred characters and one million words of Powell's lively fifty-year dance of fiction and fact. 'Hilary Spurling's exhaustive analysis of the novel's characters supplies a master-key for the reader of Anthony Powell.

A Portrait of Sonia Orwell

The Girl from the Fiction Department

Short, accessible book with broad appeal -- George Orwell remains the subject of great fascination.

Absorbing and provocative, a biography of George Orwell's controversial second wife from the Whitbread Prize-winning author of Matisse the Master and Anthony Powell 
 
Just three months before his death, the author of Nineteen Eighty-Four took a new wife. Sonia Brownell was model for Julia in Orwell's most famous novel, she was fifteen years younger than her husband, and after his death she was hounded and pilloried as a manipulative gold-digger who would stop at nothing to keep control of the literary legacy. But the truth about Sonia was altogether different. 
 
Beautiful, intelligent and fiercely idealistic, she lived at the heart of London's literary and artistic scene before her marriage to Orwell changed her life for ever. Those who knew her - Lucien Freud and Francis Bacon, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus - witnessed her great personal generosity. And yet, burdened with the almost impossible task of protecting Orwell's intellectual estate, Sonia's loyalty to her late husband brought her nothing but poverty and despair.

"Should be compulsory reading" THE TIMES 
 
George Orwell's second wife was portrayed by many of her husband's biographers as a manipulative gold-digger who would stop at nothing to keep control of his legacy. But the truth about Sonia Orwell -- the model for Julia in NINETEEN EIGHTY-FOUR -- was altogether different. Beautiful, intelligent and fiercely idealistic, she lived at the heart of London's literary and artistic scene before her marriage to Orwell changed her life for ever. Burdened with the almost impossible task of protecting Orwell's estate, Sonia's loyalty to her late husband brought her nothing but poverty and despair.

Hilary Spurling

[An] excellent and vivid biography... exemplary and deliciously readable

One of our generation's greatest biographers

Meticulous... Where Spurling excels is in her punchy analyses of his novels and her understanding of the writer's life

Spurling has triumphed...A compelling portrait of a lost Englishman

This is a fine biography by a writer who knew Powell well, and who understands how writers think

An accomplished biography of a great writer

Spurling has brought him to humane and generous life

A sharp, graceful writer who has immersed herself in the territory... wonderfully vivid

An accomplished biographer... her pen portraits are deft and vivid... brisk and bold in her evaluation of a character or retelling of an incident. Her comments on Powell's writing are always illuminating

Anyone feeling gloomy in their early 50s, worried they've been leading rather a futile life for half a century, should read this biography

[A] superb biography... beautifully written, meticulously tracked. Hilary Spurling shows a subtle understanding of her subject and his work. She demonstrates an almost uncanny ability to portray the huge cast of characters that floods in colourful profusion across the stage. Her identification of the originals of the characters in A Dance is masterly

An often surprising and always brilliant picture of English upper-middle-class intellectual life in the mid-20th century: drunkards, journalists, musicians, aristocrats, hangers-on and the odd genius. I couldn't put it down

An exciting story, from its unhappy beginnings to its triumphant ending. You can't read this without your fingers itching to get at his Dance novels, whether for the first or the 15th time

Written with an elegance that does full credit to its subject

Meticulous biography. Spurling excels "in her punchy analyses of his novels and her understanding of the writer's life

Worth the wait; intimate and judicious, it doubles as an alternative history of a lost kind of Englishness

So readable... wonderfully vivid portraits of Powell's famous acquaintances

Richly and movingly enjoyable... a tapestry of Powell's contemporaries

Publisher's description. A biography of the comic writer Anthony Powell, author of the million-word masterpiece A Dance to the Music of Time, from renowned British biographer Hilary Spurling. An insightful and surprising look into what drove the writer widely regarded as the English Proust.

Dancing to the Music of Time

Peerless literary biographer Hilary Spurling turns her attention to Anthony Powell, an iconic figure of English letters. Equally notorious for his literary achievements and his lacerating wit, Powell famously authored the twelve-volume, twenty-five year magnum opus, A Dance to the Music of Time. This enduringly fascinating portrait of mid-20th-century Britain has never been out of print, inspiring TV and radio adaptations and elevating the author to The Times' list of fifty greatest British writers since 1945. 
 
Master novelist, well-connected socialite and keen-eyed social observer, Powell comes into focus as never before in this authoritative biography from one of our generation's greatest biographers.

Hilary Spurling

Praise for Anthony Powell

[An] excellent and vivid biography... exemplary and deliciously readable

One of our generation's greatest biographers

Meticulous... Where Spurling excels is in her punchy analyses of his novels and her understanding of the writer's life

[An] excellent and vivid biography... exemplary and deliciously readable

One of our generation's greatest biographers

Meticulous... Where Spurling excels is in her punchy analyses of his novels and her understanding of the writer's life

[An] excellent and vivid biography... exemplary and deliciously readable

One of our generation's greatest biographers

Meticulous... Where Spurling excels is in her punchy analyses of his novels and her understanding of the writer's life

Books by Hilary Spurling

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