Product Description

Penelope Fitzgerald's fascinating porttrait of Bloomsbury's saddest poet. Charlotte Mew (1869--1928) was a poet with a formidable reputation who, as Virginia Woolf put it, was 'very good and interesting and unlike anyone else' and who wrote some of the best English poems of the twentieth century. In her private life, to all appearances, she was a dutiful daughter living at home with a monster of an old mother. The proprieties had to be observed and no one must know that the Mews had no money, that two siblings were insane and that Charlotte was a secret lesbian, living a life of self-inflicted frustration. Despite literary success and a passionate, enchanting personality, eventually the conflicts within her drove her to despair, and she killed herself by swallowing household disinfectant. In this unexpectedly gripping portrait, Penelope Fitzgerald brings all her novelist's skills into play, giving us what Victoria Glendinning calls a 'tantalising, touching story!an entire life's emotional history in a short space'.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #286762 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Review
'The heartbreaking story, beautifully told, of a hitherto underestimated poet. Tantalizing but touching, an entire life's emotional history in a short space.' Victoria Glendinning, Sunday Times 'A subtle, succinct, generous biography.' Hilary Spurling, Evening Standard 'An admirable book, absorbing, full of insight and sympathy and mellow humour.' Observer

About the Author
Penelope Fitzgerald was one of the most distinctive voices in British literature. The prizewinning author of nine novels, three biographies, and one collection of short stories, she died in 2000.

Customer Reviews

a neglected biography of a neglected genius
I saw one poem of Charlotte Mew's in the Guardian one Saturday. I could not place her. She seemed at once to be stark and modern yet sentimentally Victorian. I bought this book as I could not get her off my mind. This book tells the story of Charlotte, a bundle of contradictions and her unique genius. It is a tragic tale, to be sure but also an uplifting and tender one. Clearly she had many faults and foibles and struggled to cope with the world of early 20th Century London and its Literary Circles. Penelope Fitzgerald is a great story teller and a perceptive and sympathetic biographer. She is honest about the meagre sources for many parts of the story and yet she conveys a lively and truthful continuity despite the enigmatic disposition of her subject. It reads as well as any novel.
The second part of the book contains a good body of Charlotte's work and it is lovely to have it there to flick to as you read the story of how a particular poem was wrought.If the mark of a good poem is that its images stay with you then Charlotte Mew was a very good poet indeed.I have a yard full of white geraniums to witness that fact!