Edith Sitwell

'A wonderful new biography . . . Brilliant, wise, funny and affectionate. It is perfection, actually' Roger Lewis, Daily MailA strange combination of kindness and cruelty, courage and duplicity, simplicity and artifice - Edith Sitwell was undoubtedly eccentric and savagely amusing. But Sitwell is a writer who matters - enormously. And as a poet, the most significant events in her life were the poems. It is thirty years since a biography of this important poet last appeared. It is time to look again at Edith Sitwell. 'Sitwell is important: a modernist pioneer; a glorious example of the outsider life well led...This book contains so much that is new - Greene has had access to Sitwell's vast correspondence with the painter Pavel Tchelitchew, with whom she had an unreciprocated, non-physical love affair - and will no doubt be considered definitive' Rachel Cooke, Observer'Greene has made a convincing case for her peculiar genius. This is excellent, particularly in its analysis of Edith's poetry and her literary relationships'Sarah Bradford, Literary Review'Greene takes pains to show us the private Sitwell, her loyalty and sympathy, her gentleness and generosity, her loneliness and vulnerability.' Deborah Longworth, THES'Glows with loving admiration for her generous spirit, fierce sense of vocation, and shameless, irrepressible quirkiness . . . Richard Greene is an intelligent, sympathetic writer.' Richard Davenport-Hines, Sunday Telegraph