Book Description

This is a literary biography of Richard Aldington, founding member of the Imagist Movement, poet of the First World War, author of 'Death of a Hero' and a biography of D.H. Lawrence. Aldington's is an extraordinary human story dealing with contemporary issues, such as confrontation of sexual mores of the day and the impact of his soldier experience on his life and work. There hasn't been a recent biography of Aldington, the only one of the war poets not to have one. With the interest in the First World War increasing as we near the centenary, the time is right for this book. This biography explores the relationships of Aldington with other prominent literary figures: Ezra Pound, Herbert Read, T.S. Eliot, D.H. Lawrence, and his unsuccessful marriage with H.D. This first instalment of a hopefully two-volume biography covers Aldington's life and work up to 1929. It investigates the years 1911-1915 in which Aldington helped found Modernism and formed relationships with other Modernists, the years 1916-19 when his life fell apart after his soldier experience, the years 1920-28 when he tried to re-establish his literary career, laid the foundations of modern literary criticism, and his writing of Death of a Hero at the end of the decade, a blistering attack on all that had made the war possible. Offical Blurb: The story of Richard Aldington, outstanding Imagist poet and author of the bestselling war novel, Death of a Hero (1929), takes place against the backdrop of some of the most turbulent and creative years of the twentieth century. Vivien Whelpton provides a remarkably detailed and sensitive portrayal of the writer from early adolescence. His life as a stalwart of the pre-war London literary scene, as a soldier, and in the difficult aftermath of the First World War is deftly rendered through a careful and detailed analysis of the novels, poems and letters of the writer himself and his close circle of acquaintance. The complexities of London's Bohemia, with its scandalous relationships, social grandstanding and incredible creative output, are masterfully untangled, and the spotlight placed firmly on the talented group of poets christened by Ezra Pound as 'Imagistes'. The author demonstrates profound psychological insight into Aldington's character and childhood in her nuanced analysis of his post-war survivor's guilt, and consideration of the three most influential women in his life: his wife, the gifted American poet, H.D.; Dorothy Yorke, the woman he left her for; and Brigit Patmore, his brilliant and fascinating older mistress.Richard Aldington: Poet, Soldier and Lover vividly reveals Aldington's warm and passionate nature and the vitality which characterised his life and works, concluding with his triumphant personal and literary resurrection with the publication of Death of a Hero.