Death and the Author

William Palmer, Literary Review David Ellis's book is graceful, grave and elegantly written. Frequently witty and always well chosen in its detail, it ranges much more widely than its ostensible subject matter.

Laura Dietz, Times Literary Supplement Absorbing throughout

If the subject is sombre, the account of Lawrence himself - great, complex, exasperating, brave - and the responses of his wife and various friends, are told with such verve and wit that I found myself laughing as I read.

Steven Poole, The Guardian A brilliant, humane book

Brian Dillon, Irish Times Elegant, detailed and darkly humorous account of the demise of D H Lawrence.

Brian Dillon, Irish Times an elegant, detailed and darkly humorous account of the demise of DH Lawrence ... Ellis's biographical experiment is a profoundly instructive and moving success.

Iain Finlayson, The Times Ellis has a fine, mordant sense of humour that plays eloquently with the theme of consumption, that knell also of Keats, Katherine Mansfield, Kafka and Chekhov.

Victoria Glendinning, The Spectator a compelling book

Karl Orend, Times Literary Supplement ...replete with allusions...much factual detail with additional reverie on how people act in the face of death...

<br>David Ellis was born in Lancashire, educated at Downing College Cambridge, and is emeritus professor of English Literature at the University of Kent in Canterbury. During his teaching career he has spent considerable periods in France, Italy, Australia and the United States. In the academic year 1991-2, he was an Andrew Mellon Fellow at the National Humanities Research Center in North Carolina and in the autumn of 2003 a Distinguished Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study of La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia. Best known for this work on D.H. Lawrence, he has also published books on Wordsworth and Shakespeare and has a strong interest in comedy as well as in the art, science, and theory of biography. David Ellis is married with two daughters and now lives in Faversham, Kent.<br>

PART ONE: DYING; 1. Bandol; 2. Tuberculosis; 3. Denial; 4. The sanatorium; 5. Alternative medicine; 6. Being ill; 7. Death and the after-life; 8. Ending it all; PART TWO: DEATH; 9. Andrew Morland; 10. Ad Astra; 11. Visitors; 12. The hour of our death; 13. Famous last words; 14. Funeral; 15. Pilgrims; PART THREE: REMEMBRANCE; 16. Will power; 17. Lying for truth; 18. Image rights; 19. Settling scores; 20. Celebrations; 21. Mortal remains; 22. Apotheosis; Postscript: on the fear of death; Acknowledgements and sources