This Long Pursuit: Reflections of a Romantic Biographer

‘A masterly performance by the greatest literary biographer of his generation’ Oldie In this kaleidoscope of stories spanning art, science and poetry, award-winning writer Richard Holmes travels across three centuries, through much of Europe and into the lively company of many earlier biographers. Central to this pursuit is a powerful evocation of the lives of women both scientific and literary, some well-known and others almost lost: Margaret Cavendish, Mary Somerville, Germaine de Staël, Mary Wollstonecraft and Zélide. He investigates the love-stunned John Keats, the waterlogged Percy Bysshe Shelley, the chocolate-box painter Thomas Lawrence, the opium-soaked genius Coleridge, and the mad-visionary bard William Blake. The diversity of Holmes’s material is testimony to his empathy, erudition and at times his mischievous streak. This is his most personal and seductive writing yet. This Long Pursuit is a best-selling autobiography that explores the depths of European history and romanticism. Richard Holmes brings to life the figures that shaped these eras, solidifying his place as a top biographer. For fans of Fiona Mccarthy (Last Curtsey), Andrea Wulf (Magnificent Rebels), Tom Holland (The Rest is History), Christopher Clark (Kaiser Wilhelm II), and Rory Stewart (The Marches).