Robert Crawford is a poet, biographer, critic and literary historian who has published eight full collections of poetry and many prose books, including Young Eliot. Emeritus Wardlaw Professor of Poetry at the University of St Andrews, he is a Fellow of the British Academy, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature, and a Foreign Member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.
Excellent... Full of voices, friendships and conflicts, Crawford's book is rich and dense as Christmas cake... [An] outstanding biography. -- Sean O'Brien * Daily Telegraph, *5-star review* * Astonishing... This book is properly complex, both in terms of the art and the life. -- Stuart Kelly * Scotsman * Crawford's work is impeccable... [A] magisterial account... the tender, elegiac final notes of this book are...striking. -- Erica Wagner * New Statesman * Excellent... Nothing is simple within this hefty, detailed narrative and Crawford remains impeccably fair... [an] absorbing biography. -- Bel Mooney * Daily Mail, *Book of the Week* * A thorough, solid sequel to Crawford's much-praised Young Eliot... This biography...is going to play a large part in any future assessment of Eliot. -- Philip Hensher * Spectator *