Looking Back: A Panoramic View of a Literary Age by the Grandes Dames of European Letters

Gives ten portraits of the grandes dames of British letters, some of the finest novelists, essayists and biographers of the 20th century - women like Rosamond Lehmann, Juliette Huxley, Lady Diana Cooper and Molly Keane. These discussions are drawn from the interview series of "The Paris Review".

This is a lively, entertaining collection of interviews with ten women, including Lesley Blanch, Joan Haslip, Molly Keane, Rosamond Lehmann, and P.L. Travers, who were born at the turn of the century and figured prominently in British literary circles. The interviews, conducted in the late 1980s by the London editor of The Paris Review , explore central themes in these women's lives, touching upon education and personal life, literary inspiration and friendships, and the writer's work and craft. The use of a common sequence of questions leads to abruptness in some individual interchanges. Still, this common pattern unites the collection, allowing the interviews individually to capture the spirit of each woman's personality and life and collectively to capture the spirit of an age. Recommended for collections in social and intellectual history, women's studies, and literature as well as for general readers. Some, but not all, of these interviews will appear in forthcoming issues of The Paris Review. --Ed.
- Ellen Finnie Duranceau, MIT Lib., Cambridge
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