Author Description

A biography of a prominent and popular poet of the first helf of the 20th century. A member of the Bloomsbury Group, Roy Campbell had among his friends T.S. Eliot, Ezra Pound, Dylan Thomas and Edith Sitwell. The Bloomsbury set, passionate, unconventional and daring, have passed into literary legend. The life of Roy Campbell, best friend and bitter enemy to many in the group, reveals many of the contradictions and paradoxes behind their stormy relationships. Joseph Pearce examines the man who once ate a vase of daffodils with Dylan Thomas in celebration of St David's Day. He brawled with poets in the pubs of London, yet they refused to press charges against him, saying that he was "a great poet". Later, his wife's affair with Vita Sackville-West nearly tore him apart, prompting them to leave England in search of peace on the Continent. That peace was shattered by the horrors of the Spanish Civil War. Pearce has interviewed Roy Campbell's daughters, his granddaughter and his close friend, Rob Lyle.