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Frances Wilson

Frances Wilson

Frances Wilson is an award-winning biographer and the author of six books, including The Ballad of Dorothy Wordsworth (2008), Guilty Thing: A life of Thomas De Quincey (2016), and most recently, Burning Man: The ascent of D.H. Lawrence (2021).

Frances Wilson reviews 'Essays Two: On Proust, translation, foreign languages, and the City of Arles' by Lydia Davis

July 2022, no. 444 25 June 2022
Frances Wilson reviews 'Essays Two: On Proust, translation, foreign languages, and the City of Arles' by Lydia Davis
Lydia Davis writes long essays and short stories; some of them, like this one of six words, very short indeed: ‘INDEX ENTRY: Christian, I’m not a’. Influenced by Kafka and Beckett, she is drawn to Anglo-Saxon words, complex sentences, and literary forms which are hard to define. In the United States she has been awarded Guggenheim and MacArthur Genius Grants; in France she is a Chevalier of ... (read more)

Frances Wilson reviews ‘Dream-Child: A life of Charles Lamb’ by Eric G. Wilson

March 2022, no. 440 14 February 2022
Frances Wilson reviews ‘Dream-Child: A life of Charles Lamb’ by Eric G. Wilson
The life of Charles Lamb reads like a tale by Charles Dickens. In 1775, a sweet-natured boy is born in the Inns of Court, the ancient legal district in the City of London. The boy’s father, John Lamb, works as clerk, scribe, and all-round dogsbody for an imbecilic barrister called Samuel Salt – the names themselves are Dickensian – who does nothing without first consulting his servant. Charl ... (read more)