Holmes, master biographer that he is, vividly conjures up this awkward, compelling figure. What gives his book its exceptional energy, though, is not what is happening on the surface of Tennyson’s life and Holmes’s narrative. It is the powerful undertow of threatened belief and existential anxiety tugging the reader down ... This biography is a compelling story of an odd, brilliant, charismatic character, and a reappraisal of a man who had become so very established we could no longer see him.
This shrewd, sensitive, beautifully written portrait provides a much-needed restoration of the human being beneath a barnacle-encrusted reputation. A must for poetry readers and a treat for anyone who enjoys fine literary biography.
