Selected Prose

Reviews and essays from a great English writer 'Of all the novelists in English of the last quarter-century, Penelope Fitzgerald has the most unarguable claim on greatness.' Philip Hensher * A major collection of literary criticism. * Penelope Fitzgerald reviewed all her working life, even transatlantically. She was an exacting, surprising and witty critic (her put-down of Jane Austen's Persuasion on Radio 4's A Good Read is hilarious). Her great humour, good sense and incredible breadth of knowledge transformed the ordinary book review into something very special. There was no point in reading anyone else's once you'd read Penelope's. It was the absolute last word. * Contents will include early TLS reviews, pieces from PF's own short-lived arts magazine, The World Review, the Spectator, the New York Review of Books, the London Review of Books etc. Reviews of William Trevor, Philip Larkin, Muriel Spark, Doris Lessing, Giles Foden, Spanish sculpture, Mexican art, and a wonderfully funny and poignant autobiographical memoir. * An important book, a further strengthening of PF's already considerable reputation. * Same territory as Lorna Sage's Moments of Truth.