Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0393026728 ISBN 13: 9780393026726

Verlag: W W Norton & Co Inc, 1989

Spalding reveals and explores the intimate relationship between the course of Stevie Smith's life and the evolution of her art, into which she assimilated not simply the events and emotions of her private life, but the influences on her imagination of her wide and varied reading. Photos.

From Library Journal:

Spalding's critical biography of English poet and novelist Stevie Smith (1902-1971) follows Jack Barbera and William McBrien's unauthorized Stevie: A Biography of Stevie Smith (LJ 2/15/87), first published in Britain in 1985. Smith, known primarily for Novel on Yellow Paper and the poem "Not Waving But Drowning," enjoyed her greatest success in the 1960s. Omitting minor details found in the earlier volume, Spalding focuses more on the relationship between the poet's life and her writing, showing how her unique poetic and narrative style evolved. However, despite a gentler tone and more analysis of Smith's work, this biography does not add enough significant, new information for it to replace its predecessor.-- Nancy R. Ives, SUNY at Geneseo correction: Hugh Kenner's Mazes, reviewed in LJ 4/1/89, was to have been published in April but now will be published in June.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

This study of English poet Florence Margaret "Stevie" Smith (1902-71) examines the close connections between the writer's humdrum yet tragic life and her quirky verse and personalized fiction. A publishing secretary for nearly 30 years (until she attempted suicide in 1953), Smith gained celebrity in 1936 with the publication of her mocking, gossipy soliloquy, Novel on Yellow Paper . Later she gained an even larger audience as a book reviewer and giver of talks on the BBC; many of her literary friends figure in her poetry. Although much of the book remains speculative, Spalding, biographer also of Whistler, Roger Fry and Vanessa Bell, offers fresh interpretations based on new information. Her sensitive analysis should help to broaden Smith's appeal. Illustrated.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.