Ackerley: The Life of J.R. Ackerley - Softcover

Parker, Peter

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0374522790 ISBN 13: 9780374522797

Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1991

About this title

From Publishers Weekly:

Though British author-editor Ackerley (1896-1967) didn't cut a particularly wide swath in his lifetime, this engaging biography and the recent reissuance in this country of My Dog Tulip , My Father and Myself and We Think the World of You , his minor classics, should help to ensure him the literary niche he deserves. He was for 20 years literary editor of the BBC's prestigious magazine The Listener , and was considered one of the finest editors of his day; he did a stint, in India, as secretary to an eccentric maharajah; he had a close relationship with many leading men of letters, in particular E. M. Forster; and as an unabashed homosexual he seems to have spent most of his life in search of the perfect friend. Ackerley's hallmarks are honesty, an extraordinary frankness and a dash of Swiftean misanthropy reflected in his passionate regard for animals. Parker wrote The Old Life. Illustrations.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal:

As literary editor of the BBC's The Listener from 1935 to 1956, Ackerley was near the center of English literary life for decades. He was also a promiscuous homosexual whose bizarre family was pure Tennessee Williams and whose emotional life focused on his dog. Rarely do biographers find such marvelous subjects, and Parker makes the most of the opportunity. Scholarly and well documented, his book nevertheless is full of erotic and scatological detail (as Ackerley would have wanted). The personal and literary lives of Forster, Isherwood, Auden, Plomer, and a host of lesser writers are laid open for examination. Funny, tragic, and always captivating, Parker takes us on a delightful romp through England's gay subculture in what will surely be one of the best books of the year.
- Michael Edmonds, State Historical Soc. of Wisconsin, Madison
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Publication date: 1991
• ISBN 10: 0374522790
• ISBN 13: 9780374522797
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 288