Love, Sex, Death and Words: Surprising Tales From a Year in Literature

Description

In this absorbing companion to literature's rich past, arranged by days of the year, acclaimed critics and friends John Sutherland and Stephen Fender turn up the most inspiring, enlightening, surprising and curious artefacts literature has to offer. Why did 16 June 1904 matter so much to James Joyce? Which great literary love affair was brought to a tragic end on 11 February 1963? And why did Roy Campbell punch Stephen Spender on the nose on 14 April 1949? Love, Sex, Death and Words provides an unrivalled, sumptuous voyage through the highs and lows of literature's bejewelled past.

John Sutherland is Lord Northcliffe Professor Emeritus at University College London. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and was Chair of the Man-Booker Prize panel in 2005. Stephen Fender was born in San Francisco, and educated at Stanford and the Universities of Wales and Manchester. At present he is an Honorary Professor of English at UCL.

This book (co-authored with an old pal, Stephen Fender; Sutherland excels in the Victoriana, while Fender is the Americanist) should bring delight to many, sell tons and keep as many ex-wives as any of us could wish for in scones and jam... It's a smart idea, well executed. Its prime virtue is the dense agglomeration of trivia around even well-known events. -- Sam Leith, Spectator I've had tremendous fun reading [the entries] - arguing with some, substituting others, quoting them over lunch - and pleasure is at the heart of this project. It's irresistible, as compulsive as eating popcorn. Hawthorne and Melville meet for the first time, Petrarch catches first sight of Laura, Picasso, Joyce, Stravinsky and Diaghilev and Proust dine together at the Majestic, Anthony Burgess (like Scott and Whitman before him) gives a glowing review to his own book, Defoe invents the novel, but doesn't know what to call it, Bertolt Brecht testifies before HUAC, Jeffrey Archer 'goes down'. -- Guardian 'Love Sex Death Words: Surprising Tales from a Year in Literature' - the title itself is irresistible - by John Sutherland and Stephen Fender (Icon Books), is an enjoyable and entirely arbitrary romp through a leap year of anecdotes, from January 1st and the vexed history of the copyright of Peter Pan to the December 31st publication of Richard Yates's 1961 novel Revolutionary Road, with stops along the way to visit Nietzsche at his typing lessons and Alexander Pope at his doctor's. Good, clean, harmless fun. -- John Banville, Irish Times Bibliophiles are recommended to test the learned waters of 'Love, Sex, Death and Words' (Icon, GBP20) by John Sutherland and Stephen Fender, which takes us on an urbane, day-by-day amble through the year, recounting events of literary import. Here you will find an abundance of mortarboard humour and recondite jewels: the truth behind Thomas Carlyle's wedding night, for instance. -- Sunday Telegraph Doesn't the Trades Descriptions Act cover book titles? How can 'Love, Sex, Death & Words' be justified for a volume of literary dates, all based on the solitary act of an author sitting down quietly with a quill, pencil, typewriter or keyboard? In fact, not only the fourth noun but also the first three are mots justes for the entrancing events detailed here. -- Independent A huge anthology of essays about writers and books, 365 in fact, one for every day of the year, although few readers will be unable to resist reading on through several articles every time they pick up the book. -- Common Reader