Book description
Christopher Wood, a beautiful young Englishman, decided to be the
greatest painter the world had seen. He went to Paris in 1921. By day
he studied, by night he attended the parties of the beau monde. He
knew Picasso, worked for Diaghilev and was a friend of Cocteau. In the
last months of his 29-year life, he fought a ravening opium addiction
to succeed in claiming a place in history of English painting.
Richard Hilary, confident, handsome and unprincipled, flew Spitfires
in the Battle of Britain before being shot down and horribly burned.
He underwent several operations by the legendary plastic surgeon, A H
McIndoe. His account of his experiences, The Last Enemy, made
him famous, but not happy. He begged to be allowed to return to
flying, and died mysteriously in a night training operation, aged 23.
Jeremy Wolfenden was born in 1936, the son of Jack, later Lord
Wolfenden. Charming, generous and witty, he was the cleverest
Englishman of his generation, but left All Souls to become a hack
reporter. At the height of the Cold War, he was sent to Moscow where
his louche private life made him the plaything of the intelligence
services. A terrifying sequence of events ended in Washington where he
died at the age of 31.
Sebastian Faulks was born and brought up in Newbury, Berkshire. He
worked in journalism before starting to write books. He is best known
for the French trilogy,
The Girl at the Lion d'Or
,
Birdsong
and
Charlotte
Gray
(1989-1997) and is also the author of a triple biography,
The Fatal Englishman
(1996); a small book of literary parodies,
Pistache
(2006); and the novels
Human
Traces
(2005) and
Engleby
(2007). He lives in London with his wife and their three children.
