Jonathan Swift settled into his great friend Alexander Pope’s new house on the river at Twickenham (or Twitnam as they liked to call it), and joined by John Gay, the trio of Scriblerius Club writers spent a delightful and creative summer, pushing each other to new satirical heights (The Dunciad and The Beggar’s Opera also ensued), exploring the gardens and houses of their aristocratic friends and thinking up ways to torment Robert Walpole’s corrupt Whig administration without going to jail.

An unlikely threesome in many ways – Swift was 20 years older, and Gay was as large and indolent as Pope was tiny and restless – “the three Yahoos of Twittenham” were unmarried and took great emotional and intellectual succour from their friendship.

The three of them added up to more than the sum of their considerable parts and, as well as being a brilliant evocation of the radical rage, the joy and stench of early eighteenth century life, The Twitnam Summer is also a very moving portrait of male friendship.

“[A] delightful mishmash of quotations, digressions, obscure facts, arcane anecdotes and playful romps.”   – Literary Review

Why do we collect? Is it to rescue objects from oblivion? Is it a kind of desire-or even a kind of madness?

Robert Irwin-novelist, historian, translator, collector-was a true original; a virtuoso thinker who combined encyclopaedic knowledge with boundless curiosity. In this ‘mosaic of fiction, philosophy, sociology, biography and autobiography’ he takes us on a wayward journey through the art of collecting, and his own intellectual passions.

Drawing on  a treasure-trove of literary references from writers including Susan Sontag, Walter Benjamin, Iris Murdoch and Georges Perec, as well as a host of lesser-known geniuses, flaneurs, obsessives and eccentrics, Irwin explores everything from mysticism to nostalgia, psychology to propaganda, classical antiquity to surrealism, dreams to death. We join Thomas De Quincey on a night mail coach, encounter the man who set out to acquire every stamp ever issued, enter the shadowlands of long-vanished kingdoms and the badlands of fakes and forgeries, all in the company of a uniquely brilliant mind.

This is a  one-of-a-kind  book of wonders; of labyrinthine digressions, good humour and a ‘delight in small things’. It is a satisfying and unforgettable meditation on the stuff of life.

'Peter Fiennes's brisk literary travelogue is witty and packed with gossip; it moves at the speed of a TGV, with the elegance of a Citroën DS.' Sebastian Faulks

Travelling in a loop around France, from Le Havre to Paris, Peter Fiennes explores France’s sense of its own people, place and identity through some of its greatest writers and artists. Moving between the centuries, from the Arthurian forests and Neolithic fields of Brittany to the banlieues of Paris, Fiennes follows the threads of history across France. And wonders what is next for this sublime, mysterious and sometimes fractious country.

Fiennes drinks with Sartre and de Beauvoir in the bars of Rouen and Le Havre; follows Edith Wharton’s ‘Motor-Flight’ along the Loire Valley to the home of George Sand; and explores the beaches of the south with Colette and Katherine Mansfield. He lingers near Bordeaux with François Mauriac, strolls in the foothills of the Alps with John Berger and follows Colette to the trenches at Verdun, before finally heading to Paris, where he consigns Maupassant to an asylum and Sartre to his grave.

A paean to the glories of French literature, art, landscape, food and wine, En Route is a heartfelt exploration of where the country finds itself after so many centuries at the centre of European life.

***

'En Route is a tour de force.' Christopher de Bellaigue, author of The Lion House

'What bliss to travel France in the company of such great writers – including Peter Fiennes, the wittiest companion anyone could hope for.' Alex von Tunzelmann, author of Fallen Idols

'Fascinating, funny and elegiac.' Sofka Zinovieff, author of Eurydice Street

J. G. Ballard possessed one of the most astonishing imaginations of our age, and he had an intense and turbulent history: a childhood spent in the encroaching shadow of World War II, teenage internment in a Japanese prison camp – an experience famously fictionalised in Empire of the Sun. Ballard’s novels are among the finest and most unusual fiction that has ever been published. Whether in the hyper-surrealism of High Rise or the erotic violence of Crash, he upended the morality and reality of our world.

Christopher Priest knew many of Ballard’s friends and colleagues personally. As a young writer, it had been Ballard’s stories, most of all, that had helped cement his passion for science fiction. With much of their early work published in the same magazines, Priest knew about Ballard’s world from the inside. He set out to write a biography that would make people understand what he already knew: that J. G. Ballard wasn’t just a cult writer – he was one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century.

In 2024, Christopher died. He had been diagnosed with prostate cancer, which had metastasised into the bones, the same disease that killed J. G. Ballard – the man whose biography he’d spent his last months working on.

When Nina and Christopher first met, they bonded over their love for Ballard’s writing, rereading his novels and stories together many times. When it became clear that Christopher would not have time to finish this biography, Nina promised him that she would complete it, patching together with her own voice the gaps that remained. If the book began as a tribute from Priest to Ballard, it is now also a love story written by Nina for Christopher. With access to never-before-seen material, The Illuminated Man explores the history and themes of Ballard’s life and – with Ballardian strangeness – celebrates and mourns for those that are gone.

This is the story of two deaths, three science fiction writers and one attempt to turn back time.

'This is a deeply stylish, astute and illuminating biography of a fascinating writer'
FRANCESCA WADE, author of Square Haunting

'Utterly charming. A book as elegant, sharp-witted and mischievous as its subject'
CLARE POLLARD, author of Delphi

'She was, if you believe what you read in the papers: a genius, a survivor, a bad mother, a fickle friend, a closeted lesbian, a tyrant, a loner, an eccentric, a recluse, a gossip, and an arch-manipulator. She would politely encourage you not to believe what you read in the papers.'

Muriel Spark was one of literature's great shapeshifters. That mercurial quality is found in her strange, brilliant, cruel novels – with their plots featuring pensioners receiving telephone calls from Death, the devil going clubbing in Peckham and a fascist schoolmistress leading her coterie of girls astray – but it is also true of her as a person.

As sly, nimble and elegant as Spark's own work, Like a Cat Loves a Bird is a thrilling new perspective on a remarkable life and career that spanned much of the twentieth century. From her childhood in Edinburgh to her final years in Tuscany – via South Africa, London, New York and Rome – it traces a light-footed journey around the world and through her strange and magnificent bibliography. It tells an irresistible story of transformation, wit and fierce determination and makes a passionate case for this vital modern artist.

'You don't have to be a Muriel Spark fan to enjoy the sharp wit of Like a Cat Loves a Bird, a fascinating and nuanced exploration of the sacrifices some make to focus on their art'
LUKE TURNER, author of Out of the Woods

'Vital, fun and immediate . . . full of engaging and astute literary analysis of Spark's work as well as scintillating, vivid biography'
FRANCESCA REECE, author of Glass Houses

'A readable and fascinating book, about an under-appreciated literary giant
LUCINDA HAWKSLEY, author of The Mystery of Princess Louise

A captivating authorised biography of the legendary writer Jan Morris.

She was the twentieth century. Who wouldn't want to write her biography?

When Jan Morris joined the 1953 Everest expedition and was first to get news of the ascent back to London, she became the most famous journalist in the world. So began a glittering career covering the Eichmann trial, interviewing Che Guevara and scooping the story of Suez collusion. Morris transitioned in the early seventies and documented the experience in Conundrum. She was a pioneer and her books, including Venice and the Pax Britannica trilogy, have inspired readers across the globe.

Here, renowned travel writer and biographer Sara Wheeler uncovers the complexity of this twentieth-century icon to reveal a mosaic of contradictions. Morris's work conjured the spirit of place, yet her late masterpiece Trieste celebrates 'the meaning of nowhere'; she was a Welsh nationalist who wasn't Welsh; a preacher of kindness with a cruel side. This is a portrait of an astonishing life, and a scintillating story of longing, travel and never reaching home.

We all age differently, some stoically, some angrily, some calmly, some with an unfailing spirit of adventure and an undimmed curiosity

From one of our finest literary voices, The Great Good Places is a luminous collection of essays, stories and memoir that traverses the experience of growing older and looking back on a life deeply lived.

Drawing on decades of reading, writing and observation, Margaret Drabble reflects on the complex business of ageing, the strange workings of memory – its wonders and its fragility – and on the ‘great good places’, the childhood homes, coastal sanctuaries and cherished libraries that shape who we are.

Rich with a lifetime’s worth of insight and wisdom and peppered with Drabble’s trademark lucidity and wit, The Great Good Places is an elegantly layered and profoundly moving meditation on time, place and the enduring power of recollection.

From one of our leading biographers and critics comes an exhilarating, landmark new look at Muriel Spark.

SHORTLISTED FOR THE BAILLIE GIFFORD PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION

A BOOK OF THE YEAR FOR: THE TIMES/SUNDAY TIMES, GUARDIAN, TELEGRAPH, TLS, FINANCIAL TIMES, ECONOMIST, NEW STATESMAN, LONDON STANDARD AND WASHINGTON POST

Muriel Spark was a puzzle, and so too were her books. She dealt in word games, tricks and ciphers; her life was composed of weird accidents, strange coincidences and spooky events. In Electric Spark, Frances Wilson aims to finally crack her code.

We return to Spark’s early years when everything was piled on: divorce, madness, murder, espionage, poverty, skulduggery, blackmail, love affairs, revenge and a major religious conversion. If this sounds like a novel by Muriel Spark it is because her experiences of the 1940s and 1950s became, alchemically reduced, the material of her art.

‘Strikingly accomplished . . . utterly compelling.’ SUNDAY TIMES
‘A masterpiece of biography.’ DAILY TELEGRAPH
‘A total joy to read.’ SARAH BAKEWELL
‘I feel like I’ve been waiting for this book my whole life.’ SHEILA HETI

A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN:
THE GUARDIAN
THE SPECTATOR
THE TELEGRAPH
THE INDEPENDENT
ARTFORUM
WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD
NPR’S FRESH AIR

From the celebrated author of Square Haunting comes a biography as unconventional and surprising as the life it tells.

‘Think of the Bible and Homer think of Shakespeare and think of me,’ wrote Gertrude Stein in 1936. Admirers called her a genius, sceptics a charlatan: she remains one of the most confounding – and contested – writers of the twentieth century.

In this literary detective story, Francesca Wade delves into the creation of the Stein myth. We see her posing for Picasso’s portrait; at the centre of Bohemian Parisian life hosting the likes of Matisse and Hemingway; racing through the French countryside with her enigmatic companion Alice B. Toklas; dazzling American crowds on her sell-out tour for her sensational Autobiography – a veritable celebrity.

Yet Stein hoped to be remembered not for her personality but for her work. From her deathbed, she charged her partner with securing her place in literary history. How would her legend shift once it was Toklas’s turn to tell the stories – especially when uncomfortable aspects of their past emerged from the archive? Using astonishing never-before-seen material, Wade uncovers the origins of Stein’s radical writing, and reveals new depths to the storied relationship which made it possible.

This is Gertrude Stein as she was when nobody was watching: captivating, complex and human.