City Libraries, City of Gold Coast

The fatal Englishman, three short lives, Sebastian Faulks

eng

collective biography

illustrations

no index present

non fiction

The fatal Englishman

49559678

Sebastian Faulks

"In his first work of nonfiction, Sebastian Faulks explores the lives of three remarkable men. Each had the seeds of greatness; each was a beacon to his generation and left something of value behind; yet each one died tragically young. Through their stories, Faulks paints an oblique portrait of English society as it changed, from the Victorian era to the modern world. Christopher Wood, only twenty-nine when he killed himself, was a painter who lived most of his short life in the beau monde of 1920s Paris, where his charm, good looks, and the dissolute life that followed them sometimes frustrated his ambition and achievement as an artist. Richard Hillary was a gallant WWII fighter pilot who wrote a classic account of his experiences, The Last Enemy, but died in a mysterious training accident while defying doctor's orders to stay grounded after horrific burn injuries; he was twenty-three. Jeremy Wolfenden, hailed as the brightest Englishman of his generation, rejected academia to become a hack journalist in Cold War Moscow. A spy, alcoholic, and open homosexual, he died at the age of thirty-one, a victim of his own recklessness and of the peculiar pressures of his time."--BOOK JACKET

three short lives

Christopher Wood -- Richard Hillary -- Jeremy Wolfenden