Henry Williamson: Tarka and the Last Romantic

by Anne Williamson (Author)

• Used

  Paperback
  1997

  $3.45

  Best known for Tarka the Otter , winner of the Hawthornden Prize, Henry Williamson wrote over 50 books, including the Chronicle novels of World War I, now considered the finest of their kind. Profoundly affected by his experiences during World War I, Williamson was hailed by some as a literary genius - Thomas Hardy described Tarka as remarkable - but upset many others by his apparent fascist sympathies, and Anne Williamson confronts this controversy. She also describes his childhood in south-east London and his first inspirational explorations of nature in the nearby Kent countryside, his early attempts at writing, and the important decision to move to Devon to make his living as a full-time writer after the war, his complicated emotional life - his two marriages, his menage a trois with his wife, Leotitia, and Edward Thomas's daughter Ann, who bore him a child - and his friendships with many writers and artists of the day, among them T.E. Lawrence. This biography draws widely on Williamson's own archive, including his letters home from the trenches, his notes for Tarka , and a collection of photographs, presenting a portrait of this complex and engaging man.