The Girl from the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell

The Girl from the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell

by Hilary Spurling
The Girl from the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell

The Girl from the Fiction Department: A Portrait of Sonia Orwell

by Hilary Spurling

Paperback(Revised ed.)

$14.95 
  • SHIP THIS ITEM
    Qualifies for Free Shipping
    Choose Expedited Shipping at checkout for delivery by Wednesday, April 3
  • PICK UP IN STORE
    Check Availability at Nearby Stores

Related collections and offers


Overview

"Praising The Girl from the Fiction Department is easy. The hard part is figuring out what to praise first." —Washington Post Book World

The portrait of George Orwell's second wife drawn by his biographers is a travesty. Determined to set the record straight, her friend Hilary Spurling, herself an acclaimed biographer, reveals the whole story of Sonia Orwell's sad and splendid life.

Beautiful, intelligent, and idealistic, but also, as she grew older, belligerent and intimidating, Sonia was the model for Julia, heroine of Orwell's 1984. Her friends and admirers included W.H. Auden, Lucian Freud, and Frances Bacon. She was Cyril Connolly's indispensable assistant on the influential literary magazine Horizon during the 1940s and in the '60s she co-edited the groundbreaking four-volume collection of Orwell's nonfiction writings. Nonetheless, she has most frequently been depicted as mean and mercenary. Spurling portrays the real Sonia Orwell in all her generous, spirited, ferocious, and self-doubting complexity.

Author Biography: Hilary Spurling is a prize-winning biographer whose books include Ivy: The Life of Ivy Compton Burnett, The Unknown Matisse, and La Grande ThŽrse. She is a regular book reviewer for the Daily Telegraph and the New York Times.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781582432441
Publisher: Counterpoint Press
Publication date: 05/24/2004
Edition description: Revised ed.
Pages: 208
Product dimensions: 5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 0.60(d)
From the B&N Reads Blog

Customer Reviews