The Modern Library (30 page)

Read The Modern Library Online

Authors: Colm Tóibín,Carmen Callil

TWENTY OF THE BEST COLLECTIONS PUBLISHED SINCE 1950
 
John Ashbery

Self-Portrait in a Convex Mirror
1977

W. H. Auden

City Without Walls
1969

Elizabeth Bishop

Complete Poems, 1927–1979
1986

Paul Durcan

A Snail in My Prime: New and Selected Poems
1993

Thom Gunn

My Sad Captains
1961

Seamus Heaney

Field Work
1979

Anthony Hecht

Millions of Strange Shadows
1977

Geoffrey Hill

King Log
1968

Ted Hughes

The Hawk in the Rain
1957

Philip Larkin

The Whitsun Weddings
1964

Robert Lowell

Robert Lowell’s Poems: A Selection
1974

Derek Mahon

The Snow Party
1974

Les Murray

The Vernacular Republic
1982

Howard Nemerov

The Western Approaches
1975

Sylvia Plath

Ariel
1965

Adrienne Rich

The Fact of a Doorframe: Poems Selected and New
1950–1984
1984

Theodore Roethke

Collected Poems
1966

Anne Sexton

Complete Poems
1981

R. S. Thomas

Song at the Year’s Turning
1955

Derek Walcott

The Star-Apple Kingdom
1979

Autobiographies and memoirs by novelists
chosen in this book
 
 
Chinua Achebe

Home and Exile
2000

Martin Amis

Experience
2000

Kingsley Amis

Memoirs
1991

J. G. Ballard

Miracles of Life: Shanghai to Shepperton
2008

Julian Barnes

Nothing to be Frightened of
2008

Sybille Bedford

Quicksands: A Memoir
2005

Elizabeth Bowen

Seven Winters
1942

Bowen’s Court
1942

John Cheever

The Journals of John Cheever
1991

Agatha Christie

Autobiography
1977

Joan Didion

The Year of Magical Thinking
2005

Isak Dinesen

Out of Africa
1937

Anthony Burgess

Little Wilson and Big God
1987

You’ve Had Your Time
1990

John Fowles

The Journals Volume 1 1949–1965
2003

The Journals Volume 2 1965–1990
2006

Janet Frame

To the Is-Land
1983

An Angel at My Table
1984

The Envoy from Mirror City
1985

Graham Greene

A Sort of Life
1971

Ways of Escape
1980

Shirley Hazzard

Greene on Capri: A Memoir
2000

Roy Heath

Shadows Round the Moon: Caribbean Memoirs
1990

Joseph Heller

Now and Then: From Coney Island to Here
1998

Ernest Hemingway

A Moveable Feast
1964

P. D. James

Time to be in Earnest
2000

Margaret Laurence

Dance on the Earth
1990

Rosamond Lehmann

The Swan in the Evening
1967

Doris Lessing

Under My Skin, Volume 1 of my Autobiography
1994

Walking in the Shade, Volume 2 of my Autobiography
1996

David Lodge

The Year of Henry James
2006

Mary McCarthy

Memoirs of a Catholic Girlhood
1957

How I Grew
1987

Intellectual Memoirs, New York 1936–1938
1992

John McGahern

Memoir
2005

David Malouf

12 Edmonstone Street
1985

Frank Moorhouse

Martini: A Memoir
2005

R. K. Narayan

My Days
1975

Vladimir Nabokov

Speak, Memory
1951

(new edition 1966)

Sylvia Plath

The Journals of Sylvia Plath
1982

Anthony Powell

Infants of the Spring
1978

Messengers of the Day
1978

Faces in My Time
1980

The Strangers All Are Gone
1982

Published as one volume:
To Keep the Ball Rolling
1983

V. S. Pritchett

The Cab at the Door
1968

Midnight Oil
1971

Philip Roth

The Facts: A Novelist’s Autobiography
1989

Frank Sargeson

Once is Enough
1972

More Than Enough
1975

Never Enough
1978

Published as one volume:
Sargeson
1981

Vikram Seth

Two Lives
2005

Alan Sillitoe

Life Without Armour
1995

Kushwant Singh

Truth, Love and a Little Malice
2002

Wole Soyinka

Ake: The Years of Childhood

Ibadan: The Penkelemes Years: A Memoir
1946–1965

Muriel Spark

Curriculum Vitae – Autobiography
1992

Robert Stone

Prime Green: Remembering the Sixties
2007

William Styron

Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness
1991

William Trevor

Excursions in the Real World: Memoirs
1994

John Updike

Self-Consciousness: Memoirs
1989

Evelyn Waugh

A Little Learning
1964

Eudora Welty

One Writer’s Beginnings
1984

Tobias Wolff

This Boy’s Life
1989

In Pharoah’s Army
1995

Literary biographies of novelists chosen in this book
 
 
Chinua Achebe

Christophe Tshikala Kamgaji

Chinua Achebe: A Novelist and A Portrait of His Society
2004

Kingsley Amis

Zachary Leader

The Life of Kingsley Amis
2006

James Baldwin

James Campbell

Talking at the Gates: A Life of James Baldwin
1992

Samuel Beckett

Anthony Cronin

Samuel Beckett. The Last Modernist
1996

James Knowlson

Damned to Fame: The Life of Samuel Beckett
1996

Elizabeth Bowen

Victoria Glendinning

Elizabeth Bowen: Portrait of a Writer
1977

William Burroughs

Ted Morgan

Literary Outlaw: The Life and Times of William Burroughs
1988

Raymond Chandler

Tom Hiney

Raymond Chandler: A Biography
1997

Bruce Chatwin

Susannah Clapp

With Chatwin: Portrait of a Writer
1997

Nicholas Shakespeare

Bruce Chatwin
1999

John Cheever

Scott Donaldson

John Cheever: A biography
1988

Blake Bailey

Cheever: A life
2009

Agatha Christie

Laura Thompson

Agatha Christie: The Biography of Agatha Christie
2004

Ivy Compton-Burnett

Hilary Spurting

Ivy When Young: The Early Life of Ivy Compton-Burnett
1884–1919
1974

The Secrets of a Woman’s Heart: The Later Life of Ivy
Compton-Burnett 1920–1969
1984

Robertson Davies

Judith Skelton Grant

Robertson Davies: Man of Myth
1994

Isak Dinesen

Judith Thurman

Isak Dinesen: The Life of A Story Teller
1986

Daphne du Maurier

Margaret Forster

Daphne du Maurier
1993

Ralph Ellison

Lawrence Jackson

Ralph Ellison: Emergence of Genius
2002

J. G. Farrell

Lavinia Greacen

J. G. Farrell: The Making of A Writer
1999

William Faulkner

Frederick R. Karl

William Faulkner: American Writer
1989

John Fowles

Eileen Warburton

John Fowles: A Life in Two Worlds
2004

William Golding

John Carey

William Golding, A Life
2009

Nadine Gordimer

Ronald Suresh Roberts

No Cold Kitchen: A Biography of Nadine Gordimer
2005

Alasdair Gray

Rodge Glass

Alasdair Gray: A Secretary’s Biography
2008

Henry Green

Jeremy Treglown

Romancing: The Life and Times of Henry Green
2001

Graham Greene

Norman Sherry

The Life of Graham Greene Vol 1: 1904–1939
1989

The Life of Graham Greene Vol 2: 1939–1955
1995

The Life of Graham Greene Vol 3: 1956–1991
2004

Patrick Hamilton

Sean French

Patrick Hamilton
1993

Ernest Hemingway

Carlos Baker

Ernest Hemingway: A Life Story
1969

Georgette Heyer

Jane Aiken Hodge

The Private World of Georgette Heyer

B. S. Johnson

Jonathan Coe

Like A Fiery Elephant: A Life of B. S. Johnson
2005

Jack Kerouac

Barry Miles

Jack Kerouac: King of the Beats
1998

Rosamond Lehmann

Selina Hastings

Rosamond Lehmann: A Life
2002

Norman Mailer

Peter Manso

Mailer: His Life and Times
1989

Mary McCarthy

Frances Kiernan

Seeing Mary Plane: A Life of Mary McCarthy

Carson McCullers

Virginia Spencer

Carr The Lonely Hunter: A Biography of Carson McCullers
1975

Olivia Manning

Neville Braybrooke and June Braybrooke

Olivia Manning: A Life
2004

William Maxwell

Barbara A. Burckhardt

William Maxwell: A Literary Life
2005

Brian Moore

Patricia Craig

Brian Moore: A Biography
2003

Vladimir Nabokov

Brian Boyd

Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years
1990

Vladimir Nabokov: The American Years
1991

V. S. Naipaul

Patrick French

The World is What it Is: The Authorised Biography of
V. S. Naipaul
2008

John O’Hara

Frank Mac Shane

The Life of John O’Hara
1987

Sylvia Plath

Janet Malcolm

The Silent Woman: Sylvia Plath and Ted Hughes
1994

Jacqueline Rose

The Haunting of Sylvia Plath
1991

Katherine Anne Porter

John Givner

Katherine Anne Porter: A Life
1990

Anthony Powell

Hilary Spurling

Invitation to the Dance: A Handbook to Anthony Powell’s Dance to
the Music of Time
1976

Jean Rhys

Carol Angier

Jean Rhys: Life and Work
1990

Lillian Pizzichini

The Blue Hour
2009

Frank Sargeson

Michael King

Frank Sargeson: A Life
1995

Paul Scott

Hilary Spurling

Paul Scott: A Life
1990

Christina Stead

Hazel Rowley

Christina Stead: A Biography
1993

John Steinbeck

Jay Parini

John Steinbeck: A Biography
1995

Jackson J. Benson

The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer: A Biography
1989

Peter Taylor

Hubert Horton McAlexander

Peter Taylor: A Writer’s Life
2004

John Kennedy Toole

George Hardy

Ignatius Rising: The Life of John Kennedy Toole
2001

Sylvia Townsend Warner

Claire Harman

Sylvia Townsend Warner: A Biography
1989

Evelyn Waugh

Selina Hastings

Evelyn Waugh: A Biography
1995

Eudora Welty

Paul Binding

The Still Moment: Eudora Welty, Portrait of a Writer
1994

Patrick White

David Marr

Patrick White: A Life
1991

P. G. Wodehouse

Frances Donaldson

P. G. Wodehouse: The Authorised Biography
1992

Robert McCrum

P. G. Wodehouse: A Life
2004

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