Friday 16 May 2008

Spectator 180th Anniversary Blog
 

The latest culture as recommended by our staff

Peter Hoskin

Pete suggests


Letters of Ted Hughes

This splendid, brave, mad imagination

Christopher Reid
Faber, 800pp, £30, ISBN 9780571221387
Buy this book at Amazon.co.uk
Philip Hensher
Wednesday, 24th October 2007

Philip Hensher

The last letter in Ted Hughes’s collected letters is to his aunt Hilda, recounting the way in which the Queen awarded him, two weeks before his death, the Order of Merit. It reads like a dream of wish-fulfilment:

Then I gave [the Queen] a copy of Birthday Letters — and she was fascinated. I told her how I had come to write it, & even more so how I had come to publish it. I felt to make contact with her as never before. She was extremely vivacious & happy-spirited — more so than ever before. I suppose, talking about those poems, I was able to open my heart more than ever before — and so she responded in kind.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6  Next page 

Subscribe now

Post this entry to:   del.icio.us | Digg | Newsvine | NowPublic | Reddit

Comments

Post a comment


Your comment:*

Your name:*

Your email address:*
(We won't publish this)

*Required information

Please click the button only once - your comment will not be published immediately

Ben

December 5th, 2007 12:16am

'in English'? don't you mean 'English poet'? and anyway Geoffrey Hill is greater.

Related articles

1968 and all that

Allan Massie

Allan Massie remembers 1968

Not a decent book

Sam Leith

Sam Leith on a joint critical study of Kingsley and Martin Amis

But what about justice, fairness and honesty?

Alan Judd

Alan Judd reads James Griffin's account of human rights

Two were barking

Cressida Connolly

Cressida Connolly on Julia Blackburn's family memoir

Through Western eyes

Ian Garrick Mason

Ian Garrick Mason on the new book from Anthony Pagden

Spectator recommends

Bush Hall Hotel - Hertfordshire, UK

Bush Hall Hotel - traditional quality country house hotel & restaurant, in Hertfordshire UK. Luxury leisure breaks, wedding & conference...


Spectator classifieds

UMBRIA

UMBRIA, Niccone Valley.Farmhouse Rental. Newly renovated 400 year old farmhouse, high on the south facing slope of Niccone Valley, on

Cornwall.

AMAZING CORNISH HOUSE previously featured in Vogue Living, available to let during the last 3 weeks of August either on a