Tretower to Clyro

Karl Miller was educated at the Royal High School of Edinburgh and Cambridge and Harvard Universities. He became literary editor of the Spectator and the New Statesman as well as editor of the Listener, and went on the found The London Review of Books, which he edited for many years. From 1974 to 1992 he served as Lord Northcliffe Professor of Modern English Literature at University College, London. His books include Cockburn's Millennium, which received the James Tait Black Memorial Award, Doubles, Authors, a Life of James Hoggart, Electric Shepherd and two volumes of autobiography, Rebecca's Vest and Dark Horses.

'Imbued with his usual eloquence and foresight ... his criticism attains an artistic quality of its own' Financial Times.

• Acknowledgements. Foreword: Andrew O'Hagan. 'Didn't they ramble', a poem by Seamus Heaney. Country Writers. From the Lone Shieling. McGahern's Hard Sayings. The Passion of Alice Laidlaw. Edward and Florence. What Happened to Seamus Heaney. Yorkshire Lad. Hot for Boswell. Cockburn's Letters. McNeillie's Dream. Glass's Life of Gray. Carnival Scotland. Lord Dacre Hammers the Scots. Epilimnion Re-Used. Gulleying About. Baltimore's Honeys. Afterword. Notes. Index.