Confessions

A Life of Failed Promises

Confessions cover

Confessions

A Life of Failed Promises

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Description

When you combine the deepest learning and the highest readability with the most plumptious story-telling, the result is A. N. Wilson … Stephen Fry

Known for his journalism, biographies and novels, A. N. Wilson turns a merciless searchlight on his own early life, his experience of sexual abuse, his catastrophic mistakes in love and his life in Grub Street as a prolific writer.

Before he came to London, as one of the “Best of Young British” novelists, and Literary Editor of the Spectator, we meet another A. N. Wilson. We meet his father, the Managing Director of Wedgwood, the grotesque teachers at his first boarding school, and the dons of Oxford – one of whom, at the age of just 20, he married, the renowned Shakespearean scholar, the late Katherine Duncan-Jones.

At every turn of this reminiscence, Wilson is baffled by his earlier self – whether flirting with unsuitable lovers or with the idea of the priesthood. His chapter on the High Camp seminary which he attended in Oxford is among the funniest in the book.

We follow his unsuccessful attempts to become an academic, his aspirations to be a Man of Letters, and his eventual encounters with the famous, including some memorable meetings with royalty.

The princesses, dons, paedophiles and journos who cross the pages are as sharply drawn as figures in his early comic fiction. But there is also a tenderness here, in his evocation of those whom he has loved, and hurt, the most.

Table of Contents

Introduction
1. Ungentle A. N.
2. Remind Me
3. Sorrowful Lay
4. Living up to the Blue China
5. Best of Young British
6. Masks
7. Norman Wilson's Son
8. Leaving Germany
9. The Works
10. Frail Travelling
11. Andrew Woods
12. Contrasts
13. Warfare Accomplished
14. Miscarriages
15. What is my Name?
16. Convent Thoughts
17. Newcastle Road
18. When I Get There, I'll Be Glad
19. Put Your Cap On, I Should
20. Notes for Boys
21. Little Bryan
22. Acqua Non Fizzimento
23. Journalistic Debut
24. A Bit of a Ruin
25. Mme de Liencourt, Mr Lowry and Others
26. Galsworthy Scholar
27. Kibbutznik
28. Lost Causes
29. Angel Fluffs
30. “Are they twa sweethearts?”
31. St Trinian's
32. Superficial Journey
33. St Andrew's by the Northern Sea
34. Prosaic and Drivelling
35. Clare
36. The Green Stick
Index

Product details

Published 22 Jun 2023
Format Paperback
Edition 1st
Extent 320
ISBN 9781472994820
Imprint Bloomsbury Continuum
Illustrations 20 black and white photographs throughout book
Dimensions 198 x 129 mm
Publisher Bloomsbury Publishing

About the contributors

Author

A. N. Wilson

A. N. Wilson is a Fellow of the Royal Society of L…

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