The Knife Man

Wendy Moore has done justice to this marvellous man in a biography packed with gruesome facts and eye-opening perceptions. It is an accomplished achievement and a splendid read * The Times * Moore's feel for pace and narrative is impeccable. She excels on the nitty-gritty of his work - the carving, digging, slicing and bottling - but makes us understand why these horrors were wonders. She is, at last, the biographer Hunter deserves * Independent * The primitive operations without anaesthesia, the bitter rivalries and battles, the struggle against snobbery and orthodoxy - all set against a kaleidoscopic Hogarthian backdrop of gin-shops, brothels, elegant drawing rooms, charnel houses and crude operating theatres. This is a truly fascinating read -- Dr Alan Maryon Davis, Writer and Snr Consultant, Guy's Hospital Marvellous... There is wit here, without banality; there is scholarship, without pomposity; there is history of the Georgian period that drives you to seek more about that same period - and there can be no greater compliment for a biographer. A classic unputdownable page-turner. It's a winner all round - and now I've finished it, I'm going to start all over again -- Claire Rayner, writer and health adviser Wendy Moore has written an immensely readable account of one of the most fascinating individuals of the 18th century. A thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining biography -- Patrick McGrath, author of Port Mungo