Some authors create from scratch, imagining situations and characters to fill their pages; others live and write their realities. In John Sutherland’s playfully encyclopedic Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives, he works to catalog the methods and experiences of 294 notable writers. In this passage,
Vladimir Nabokov’s Lolita has become a literary classic, read over and over by those who cannot pull themselves away from Humbert Humbert’s troubling yet tragically beautiful prose. In John Sutherland’s Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives, he traces beloved authors like Nabokov back through when
Michael Slater, author of The Great Charles Dickens Scandal is not the only one preoccupied with the secret affairs of Charles Dickens. In his sweeping guide Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives, John Sutherland introduces and explores 294 of literature’s greatest artists, providing biographical details
Thanks to the BBC’s hit TV series Sherlock, “I Am Sher-Locked” is the latest “it”-phrase among admirers of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s brilliant madcap detective, Sherlock Holmes. Yet Doyle himself was never quite so locked on Sherlock as his fan-base. In his celebration of novel history’s giants, Lives of the
From the popular new series of YouTube vlogs, “The Lizzie Bennet Diaries” to the recent rash of Austen-inspired self-help books, Jane Austen mania shows no sign of slowing down in 2012. In Lives of the Novelists: A History of Fiction in 294 Lives, John Sutherland reflects on why Jane continues to
Samuel Johnson’s Lives of the Most Eminent English Poets (1779-1781) is a classic work of literary biography, covering 52 poets whom the author felt had the most influence on the English language. Now, John Sutherland follows in this great tradition with his sweeping and ambitious book, Lives of the Novelists: