Andrew Lycett

The definitive biography of author Ian Fleming and the perfect read for anyone enjoying the Sky Atlantic biopic starring Dominic Cooper. Ian Fleming's life was just as dramatic as that of his fictional creation, James Bond. Andrew Lycett's direct access to Fleming's family, friends and contemporaries has enabled him to reveal the truth behind the complicated facade of this enigmatic and remarkable man. With an extraordinary cast of characters, this is biography at is best - part history, part gossip and part an informed reassessment of one of this century's most celebrated yet mysterious personalities.

Ian Fleming

Critically acclaimed biographer Lycett researches thousands of previously unavailable documents to shine an entirely new light on the baffling life of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the creator of one of literatures most enduring characters. of b&w photographs.

The Life and Times of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

The Man Who Created Sherlock Holmes

A biography of the novelist, Rudyard Kipling, written by the author of IAN FLEMING. It covers Kipling's years in India and later years in London when he was suffering from depression and relates his life to his novels and short stories.

Rudyard Kipling

Sportsman, womanizer, naval commander, world-traveler, spy, this suave Old Etonian creator of the Cold War's archetypal secret agent was infinitely more complicated and interesting than his major fictional character, Agent 007. Fleming's wide-ranging and exciting life inevitably provided the plausible backdrop for the Bond novels, and while his temperamental, sometimes violent nature got him into difficulties as a young man, the second World War was the making of him. Highly regarded in British naval intelligence for his international contacts, he master-minded numerous top secret operations, including "Golden Eye", which is uncovered here for the first time. From the late 1930s on, he kept up an affair with Ann ONeill, the wife of a friend, but refused to marry her even after her husband was killed in the war. This passionate relationship continued for fifteen years, ending in marriage only after she became pregnant by Fleming a second time. Two months before the wedding -- to soothe his nerves -- Fleming sat down to write his first book, Casino Royale. So began the long line of Bond novels, which in this volume are given their fullest publishing history.

The Man Behind James Bond

This full-length biography of the enigmatic journalist and Naval Intelligence officer who created James Bond - and who lived a life just as dramatic as that of his fictional creation - draws on interviews with Fleming's family and friends. 50,000 first printing.

The definitive biography of the poet who was almost as notorious for his 'rock 'n' roll' lifestyle as his artistic work Dylan Thomas was a romantic and controversial figure; a poet who lived to excess and died young. An inventive genius with a gift for both lyrical phrases and impish humour, he also wrote for films and radio, and was renowned for his stage performances. He became the first literary star in the age of popular culture - a favourite of both T.S. Eliot and John Lennon. As his status as a poet and entertainer increased, so did his alcoholic binges and his sexual promiscuity, threatening to destroy his marriage to his fiery Irish wife Caitlin. As this extraordinary biography reveals, he was a man of many contradictions. But out of his tempestuous life, he produced some of the most dramatic and enduring poetry in the English language.

A New Life

Dylan Thomas

Offers a look at the personal and professional life of the creator of secret agent 007

Conan Doyle. L'uomo che inventò Sherlock Holmes

This book reveals the captivating travels and adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle--the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle was not simply the creator of the world's greatest detective; he was also an intrepid traveler and extraordinary travel writer. His descriptions of his journeys and adventures--which took him to the Arctic and the Alps, throughout Africa, Australia and North America, and across every ocean in between--are full of insight, humor and exceptional evocations of place. Until now, these captivating travelogues have never been gathered together. In this ground-breaking book, Andrew Lycett, Conan Doyle's celebrated biographer, collects and annotates the best of his writings from around the world, which illuminate not just the places he visited, but the man himself.

Sherlock Holmes and Beyond

Conan Doyle's Wide World

The renowned literary biographer offers a “thoroughly well-written” chronicle of the legendary Welsh poet’s life that is “rich in anecdote” (The New Yorker). Dylan Thomas is as legendary for his raucous life as for his literary genius. The author of the immortal poems Death Shall Have No Dominion, Before I Knocked, and Do Not Go Gentle into That Good Night, as well as the short story A Christmas in Wales, and the “play for voices” Under Milk Wood, published his first book, 18 Poems, in 1934, when he was only twenty years old. When he died in New York in 1953, at age thirty-nine, the myths took hold: he became the Keats and the Byron of his generation—the romantic poet who died too young, his potential unfulfilled. Making masterful use of original material from archives and personal papers, Andrew Lycett describes the development of the young poet, brings valuable new insights to Thomas’s poetry, and unearths fascinating details about the poet’s many affairs and his tempestuous marriage to his passionate Irish wife, Caitlin. The result is a poignant yet stirring portrait of the chaos of Thomas’s personal life and a welcome re-evaluation of the lyricism and experimentalism of his literary legacy. “This is the best biography of the poet I have ever read.” —Robert Nye, The Scotsman

Ground-breaking biography of the creator of fiction's best loved detective Though Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's name is recognised the world over, for decades he was overshadowed by his creation, Sherlock Holmes - one of literature's most enduring characters. Conan Doyle was a man of many contradictions. Romantic, energetic, idealistic and upstanding, he could also be selfish and foolhardy. Lycett assembles the many threads of Conan Doyle's life, including the lasting impact of his domineering mother and his alcoholic father; his affair with a younger woman while his wife lay dying; and his fanatical pursuit of scientific data to prove and explain various supernatural phenomena. Lycett combines access to new material with assiduous research and penetrating insight to offer the most comprehensive, lucid and sympathetic portrait yet of Conan Doyle's personal journey from student to doctor, from world-famous author to ardent spiritualist.

The Man who Created Sherlock Holmes

Conan Doyle

With fascinating extracts from his own writings, this book reveals the captivating travels and adventures of Arthur Conan Doyle - the creator of Sherlock Holmes. Arthur Conan Doyle was not simply the creator of the world's greatest detective; he was also an intrepid traveler and extraordinary travel writer. His descriptions of his journeys and adventures--which took him to the Arctic and the Alps, throughout Africa, Australia and North America, and across every ocean in between--are full of insight, humor and exceptional evocations of place. Until now, these captivating travelogues have never been gathered together. In this ground-breaking book, Andrew Lycett, Conan Doyle's celebrated biographer, collects and annotates the best of his writings from around the world, which illuminate not just the places he visited, but the man himself.

"1868, and bestselling author Wilkie Collins is hard at work on a new detective novel, The Moonstone. But he is weighed down by a mountain of problems his own sickness, the death of his mother, and, most pressing, the announcement by his live-in mistress that she has tired of his relationship with another woman and intends to marry someone else. His solution is to increase his industrial intake of opium and knuckle down to writing the book T. S. Eliot called the greatest' English detective novel. Of Wilkie's domestic difficulties, not a word to the outside world: indeed, like his great friend Charles Dickens, he took pains to keep secret any detail of his menage. There's no doubt that the arrangement was unusual and, for Wilkie, precarious, particularly since his own books focused on uncovering such deeply held family secrets. Indeed, he was the master of the Victorian sensation novel, fiction that left readers on the edge of their seats as mysteries and revelations abounded. In this colourful investigative portrait, Andrew Lycett draws Wilkie Collins out from the shadow of Charles Dickens. Wilkie is revealed as a brilliant, witty, friendly, contrary and sensual man,

Andrew Lycett

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