Lives of the Novelists
John Sutherland
Lives of the Novelists
John Sutherland provides the lives of some 294 novelists writing in English, from the genre's seventeenth-century origins to the present day. Arranged in chronological order the novelist's lives are opinionated, informative, frequently funny and often shocking. Professor Sutherland's authors come from all over the world; their writings illustrate every kind of fiction from gothic, penny dreadfuls and pornography to fantasy, romance and high literature. The book shows the changing forms of the genre, and how the aspirations of authors to divert and sometimes to educate their readers, has in some respects, radically changed over the centuries, and in others — such as their interest in sex and relationships — remained remarkably constant.
4.3 out of 5 based on 5 reviews
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Omniscore:
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| Classification |
Non-fiction |
| Genre |
Literary Studies & Criticism |
| Format |
Hardback |
| Pages |
816 |
| RRP |
£30.00 |
| Date of Publication |
October 2011 |
| ISBN |
978-1846681578 |
| Publisher |
Profile |
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John Sutherland provides the lives of some 294 novelists writing in English, from the genre's seventeenth-century origins to the present day. Arranged in chronological order the novelist's lives are opinionated, informative, frequently funny and often shocking. Professor Sutherland's authors come from all over the world; their writings illustrate every kind of fiction from gothic, penny dreadfuls and pornography to fantasy, romance and high literature. The book shows the changing forms of the genre, and how the aspirations of authors to divert and sometimes to educate their readers, has in some respects, radically changed over the centuries, and in others — such as their interest in sex and relationships — remained remarkably constant.
Reviews
The Evening Standard
Michael Prodger
"A heavy book offering 294 biographical essays on the lives of assorted novelists from John Bunyan to Ian McEwan does not sound too promising. This is, though, the funniest book I've read all year … Sutherland's reading is formidable and he never plays it just for laughs. His throwaway lines are born of a deep knowledge of his subject, and the best combine a sharp aperçu with picaresque expression."
10/11/2011
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The Financial Times
Henry Hitchings
"[A] mixture of informed quirkiness and savoury opinion … mostly Sutherland gets things dead right. He is witty and humane ... The most gratifying effect of this peculiar but rather wonderful book is that it makes you want to slink off and ransack a well-stocked library."
28/10/2011
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The Spectator
Caroline Moore
"Some readers may wonder if we need this book. Surely, the argument might go, one can summon up potted ‘lives’ on the internet, while serious biographies take book form. And how can even 294 lives of novelists offer, as the cover to this book claims, ‘a comprehensive history of the English novel’? Reason not the need: this book celebrates enjoyment. And it is itself hugely enjoyable. Few, if any, of those Wikipedia entries are well written, let alone witty; most current literary biographies weigh in at around 800 pages: Sutherland’s brief lives display the soul of wit — whose essence is to encompass the unexpected."
03/12/2011
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The Times
Iain Finlayson
"Sutherland is good value: provocative, polymathic and well practised in the art of literary criticism. He has made an eclectic, certainly idiosyncratic, selection of nigh on 300 international novelists writing in English over near enough the past 400 years on grounds that seem good to him but may seem perverse to others. What matters most in a book such as this is not just the critical judgment, but the critical voice. Sutherland’s is conversational and confidential, concise and confident."
19/11/2011
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The Sunday Telegraph
Jonathan Bate
"Whereas Johnson’s Lives of the Poets moved from overview of the life to measured critical insight, Sutherland’s Lives of the Novelists is heavy on biographical anecdote — especially when it comes to sexual activity and alcoholic intake — but distinctly light on literary analysis."
23/11/2011
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