Edith Sitwell: A Unicorn Among Lions
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
She was a figure of towering eccentricity and volcanic talent — a poet who declared war on mediocrity and made herself into a living work of art. Victoria Glendinning's Edith Sitwell: A Unicorn Among Lions chronicles the extraordinary life of Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964), tracing her journey from a miserable, overlooked childhood in the aristocratic Sitwell household to her emergence as one of the most provocative and visionary poets of the twentieth century. Set against the vivid backdrop of London's interwar literary scene, the biography details her fierce friendships and feuds with the era's greatest minds — from W.B. Yeats and Gertrude Stein to Dylan Thomas and Noël Coward — painting an intimate portrait of a woman who refused, at every turn, to be ordinary. Glendinning brings her signature gift for psychological acuity and narrative elegance to bear on a subject as complex as any she has tackled, illuminating the fierce ambition and profound loneliness that lay beneath Sitwell's magnificent, flamboyant exterior. Winner of the Whitbread Biography Award, this authoritative work argues that Sitwell's critical reputation — long dismissed or diminished by a male literary establishment — deserves urgent reassessment, positioning her not as a mere period curiosity but as a genuinely radical force in modern poetry. For anyone drawn to the intersection of art, identity, and the courage it takes to be utterly, defiantly oneself, this biography poses a question that lingers long after the final page: what does it truly cost to be a unicorn in a world full of lions?
Author: Victoria Glendinning
Format: Hardback
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Book: Good
Jacket: Worn/faded, no tears
Pages: Good
She was a figure of towering eccentricity and volcanic talent — a poet who declared war on mediocrity and made herself into a living work of art. Victoria Glendinning's Edith Sitwell: A Unicorn Among Lions chronicles the extraordinary life of Dame Edith Sitwell (1887–1964), tracing her journey from a miserable, overlooked childhood in the aristocratic Sitwell household to her emergence as one of the most provocative and visionary poets of the twentieth century. Set against the vivid backdrop of London's interwar literary scene, the biography details her fierce friendships and feuds with the era's greatest minds — from W.B. Yeats and Gertrude Stein to Dylan Thomas and Noël Coward — painting an intimate portrait of a woman who refused, at every turn, to be ordinary. Glendinning brings her signature gift for psychological acuity and narrative elegance to bear on a subject as complex as any she has tackled, illuminating the fierce ambition and profound loneliness that lay beneath Sitwell's magnificent, flamboyant exterior. Winner of the Whitbread Biography Award, this authoritative work argues that Sitwell's critical reputation — long dismissed or diminished by a male literary establishment — deserves urgent reassessment, positioning her not as a mere period curiosity but as a genuinely radical force in modern poetry. For anyone drawn to the intersection of art, identity, and the courage it takes to be utterly, defiantly oneself, this biography poses a question that lingers long after the final page: what does it truly cost to be a unicorn in a world full of lions?