{"title":"Books by John Worthen","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"9781906598860","title":"T. S. Eliot – A Short Biography","description":"Biographical writing about Eliot is in a more confused and contested state than is the case with any other major twentieth-century writer. No major biography has been released since the publication of his early poems, \"Inventions of the March Hare,\" in 1996, which radically altered the reading public's perception of Eliot. There have been attempts to turn the American woman Emily Hale into the beloved woman of Eliot's middle years; and Eliot has also been blamed for the instability of his first wife and declared a closet homosexual. This biography frees Eliot from such distortions, as well as from his cold and unemotional image. It offers a sympathetic study of his first marriage which does not attempt to blame, but to understand; it shows how Eliot's poetry can be read for its revelations about his inner world. Eliot once wrote that every poem was an epitaph, meaning that it was the inscription on the tombstone of the experience which it commemorated. His poetry shows, however, that the deepest experiences of his life would not lie down and die, and that he felt condemned to write about them.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56308323254645,"sku":"9781906598860","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781906598860_b4129959-c6a3-44a5-83fc-392a723db7d2.jpg?v=1786029037"},{"product_id":"9780300163988","title":"Robert Schumann – Life and Death of a Musician","description":"Shattering longstanding myths, this new biography reveals the robust and positive life of one of the nineteenth century's greatest composers This candid, intimate, and compellingly written new biography offers a fresh account of Robert Schumann’s life. It confronts the traditional perception of the doom-laden Romantic, forced by depression into a life of helpless, poignant sadness. John Worthen’s scrupulous attention to the original sources reveals Schumann to have been an astute, witty, articulate, and immensely determined individual, who—with little support from his family and friends in provincial Saxony—painstakingly taught himself his craft as a musician, overcame problem after problem in his professional life, and married the woman he loved after a tremendous battle with her father. Schumann was neither manic depressive nor schizophrenic, although he struggled with mental illness. He worked prodigiously hard to develop his range of musical styles and to earn his living, only to be struck down, at the age of forty-four, by a vile and incurable disease.   Worthen’s biography effectively de-mystifies a figure frequently regarded as a Romantic enigma. It frees Schumann from 150 years of mythmaking and unjustified psychological speculation. It reveals him, for the first time, as a brilliant, passionate, resolute musician and a thoroughly creative human being, the composer of arguably the best music of his generation.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":56311677714805,"sku":"9780300163988","price":25.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780300163988_ebd0c884-a478-4015-a77b-4cbe853cf18b.jpg?v=1786012673"},{"product_id":"d-h-lawrence","title":"D. H. Lawrence","description":"\u003cp\u003eD. H. Lawrence: The Life of an Outsider is an illuminating and clear-sighted portrait of one of the twentieth century's most brilliant, radical and misunderstood writers.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eJohn Worthen follows Lawrence's from his awkward and intense youth in Nottinghamshire, through his turbulent relationship with Frieda and the years of exile abroad to his premature death at the age of 44. His account is an intimate and absolutely compelling reappraisal of a man who believed himself to be an outsider, in angry revolt against his class, culture and country, and who was engaged in a furious commitment to his writing and a passionate struggle to live according to his beliefs.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57466510705013,"sku":"9780141007311","price":17.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780141007311.jpg?v=1785654569"},{"product_id":"johannes-brahms","title":"Johannes Brahms","description":"Johannes Brahms is often cast as repressed or emotionally distant. This nuanced biography by acclaimed biographer John Worthen reveals a more complex and human figure – brilliant, passionate and deeply committed both to his art and to those he loved. Brahms’s lifelong devotion to Clara Schumann shaped much of his personal and creative life, while his refusal to conform to social expectations kept him at odds with the genteel world around him. Raised in modest circumstances, he remained proudly working class even as he became one of the greatest composers of his time, with works ranging from the intimacy of the ‘Alto Rhapsody’ to the humane power of ‘A German Requiem’. Worthen shows us the man behind the music – blunt, brilliant and fiercely alive.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57490148852085,"sku":"9781836391975","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9781836391975.jpg?v=1786442034"},{"product_id":"here-love-ends","title":"Here Love Ends","description":"Here Love Ends: The Conflicts of Frieda and D.H. Lawrence by John Worthen is an enquiry into the transformations in Lawrence's life and writing which took place between 1913 and 1917. Set alongside his relationship with Frieda Weekley, as revealed by letters and memoirs, his writing (like the first version of Women in Love) shows a Lawrence bedevilled by conflicts within and without: in his marriage to Frieda and because of the start of the First World War, in 1914; by the suppression of The Rainbow in 1915; and during his time in Cornwall with Frieda, Mansfield and Murry in 1916.  Worthen shows how Murry's biographical accounts of Lawrence are not as trustworthy as previous biographies assume; he also probes the evidence for Lawrence's now-notorious assault on Frieda in 1916, arguing that Mansfield's letters reveal a very different reality. The book concludes with the breakdown of Lawrence's friendships with Mansfield and Murry and a reading of his 1918-21 novel Aaron's Rod, with which the sun sets on love and marriage as a major theme in his work. Here Love Ends, indeed.","brand":"Gardners","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":57680056123765,"sku":"9780718898717","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0612\/7193\/3106\/files\/9780718898717.jpg?v=1792423010"}],"url":"https:\/\/backstory.london\/collections\/author-john-worthen.oembed","provider":"Backstory","version":"1.0","type":"link"}