Caroline Moore

Entry to the sacred grove

  • The Lives of the Novelists

    John Sutherland

    Profile, pp. 818

Some readers may wonder if we need this book. Surely, the argument might go, one can summon up potted ‘lives’ on the internet, while serious biographies take book form. And how can even 294 lives of novelists offer, as the cover to this book claims, ‘a comprehensive history of the English novel’?

Reason not the need: this book celebrates enjoyment.

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