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George Gordon Byron (Lord Byron) 1788-1824
Romantic poet, playwright and novelist
Famously born with a club foot, the extraordinarily handsome Lord Byron was educated at Harrow and at Cambridge, after which he travelled extensively in southern Europe.
Returning to England, he embarked on a number of remarkable romantic alliances: with Lady Caroline Lamb; with his half-sister Augusta with whom he had a child; and with Annabella Milbanke, who married and later left him after rumours of incest. Ostracised, Byron escaped to Italy where he maintained his well-founded reputation as an insatiable womaniser and lover, having an affair (and a child) with Shelley's sister-in-law and sometime lover, and with a married countess, among others.
His poetic works — beginning with Childe Harold's Pilgrimage in 1812 — were always popular in England, and even more so in continental Europe, where he enjoyed enormous status as the leading 'celebrity' of the Romantic movement.
Believing, finally, that action was more important than poetry, Byron travelled to Greece to fight against the Turks, despite having a presentiment that he would die there. He died of fever before seeing any serious military action.
Find out more …
Lord Byron: Poet and Revolutionary
www.times1190.freeserve.co.uk/lordbyro.htm
Explore Byron’s life, his poetry and the women in his life on this comprehensive site.
Lord Byron by Catherine Peters (Sutton Publishing, 2000) £5.99.
The life story of this aristocrat and revolutionary, a mass of contradictions.
F(rancis) Scott (Key) Fitzgerald 1896-1940
American novelist
Named after a distant relative who was the lyricist of America’s national anthem The Star-Spangled Banner, Fitzgerald was, from a young age, an intensely ambitious author. At Princeton, he neglected his studies in order to write, and in 1917, unlikely to graduate, he joined the army.
While posted in Alabama, Fitzgerald fell in love with the equally ambitious southern belle, Zelda Sayre, who finally consented to marry him when his first novel, This Side of Paradise (1920), brought him instant fame. The couple revelled in their status as celebrities of the Jazz Age, and Fitzgerald’s novels reflected the themes of their life: love, aspiration, success and, tragically, disillusion.
Despite three more novels including The Great Gatsby (1925), Fitzgerald never won the critical acclaim he sought. He became an alcoholic, forced to write commercial short stories to fund his and Zelda's extravagant lifestyle, while Zelda’s intensive training to become a ballet dancer led to a nervous breakdown. She was later diagnosed with schizophrenia and remained in sanatoriums for the rest of her life.
In 1937, Fitzgerald moved alone to Hollywood, where he worked as a scriptwriter and began an affair with a show business columnist. He died in her apartment, after a heart attack, in 1940.
Find out more …
A Fitzgerald Chronology
www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/chronology.html
A chronology of Fitzgerald’s life and work.
F Scott Fitzgerald’s Publications
www.sc.edu/fitzgerald/bibliography.html
Comprehensive list of all his publications, including journalism, and reviews of his work.
Hemingway vs Fitzgerald: The rise and fall of a literary friendship by Scott Donaldson (Overlook Press, 1999) £25.
Biography and analysis of his place in the US literary scene.
Martin (Louis) Amis 1949-
Novelist and journalist
As the son of novelist Kingsley Amis, young Martin grew up in a literary world peopled with famous figures such as the poet Philip Larkin, and had for a (loving) stepmother the novelist Elizabeth Jane Howard.
Unusually unpromising at school, Amis crammed hard for his Oxford entrance exams and went on to get a first-class degree, before publishing his first novel, The Rachel Papers (1973), at the age of 24. He has since produced such novels as Money (1984), London Fields (1989), Time's Arrow (1991) and The Information (1995).
Despite literary success, Amis has often been vilified in the press for what is portrayed as his enormous and self-serving ego. Media accusations include his spending $20,000 dollars on cosmetic dentistry and ditching his long-time agent — who was also the wife of Julian Barnes, one of his oldest friends — for a $500,000 advance with a new agent. Extra tabloid fodder was supplied when Amis discovered that he had a grown-up daughter from a brief affair and, most tragically, when his cousin was found to have been one of the murder victims of serial killers Frederick and Rose West.
Probably the pre-eminent British author today, it has been said of the intellectually arrogant Amis that you either love him or you hate him. Either way, he is likely to remain a conspicuous literary figure throughout the rest of his career.
Find out more …
Guardian Unlimited Martin Amis page
http://books.guardian.co.uk/authors/author/0,5917,-4,00.html
Brief biography, reviews of his works, plus comprehensive links for further information, including his own reading recommendations.
The Fiction of Martin Amis by Nicolas Tredell (Icon Books, 2000) £9.99.
Critical judgements and interpretations generated by Amis's novels and short stories over the past 25 years.