James Joyce

First published in 1959, then extensively revised for the 1982 edition, this remains one of the great models of 20th-century biography. The late Richard Ellmann combines enormous erudition with a clarity of style. His greatest success is in creating sympathetically a seamless whole between the man and his work, and in making Joyce live three-dimensionally on the page in all his infuriating genius. A remarkable book which set a new standard of humane scholarship, assembling vast quantities of material with great elegance and building up a moving recreation of a complex character. (Kirkus UK)