Graham Robb – författare

No one knows a city like the people who live there – so who better to relate the history of Paris than its inhabitants through the ages? Taking us from 1750 to the new millennium, Graham Robb's Parisians is at once a book to read from cover to cover, to lose yourself in, to dip in and out of at leisure, and a book to return to again and again – rather like the city itself, in fact.For this collection of true stories the City of Paris awarded Graham the Medal of the City of Paris.'Quirky, amused and très British' Julian Barnes, author of The Sense of an Ending.

Almost a century after the death of the French poet Stéphane Mallarmé, readers still puzzle over his writings, still seek to understand his seemingly impenetrable philosophy. In this highly original book, Graham Robb reveals conclusive answers to the mysteries of Mallarmé. Robb's discovery of a "key" to Mallarmé's poetry is an exciting achievement that entirely redefines Mallarmé studies, illuminates large areas of French poetry, both before and after Mallarmé, and opens the way for new interpretations of some of the most complicated poems ever written.As Robb scrutinized the work of Mallarmé, he discovered that the poet repeatedly used the hundred or so words in the French language that have no rhyme. This discovery, as Robb tells it, "proved to be the first step of a staircase leading to a tomb which had remained sealed since Mallarmé built it." It revealed the only perspective from which his poems "made sense"—as allegorical tales of their own creation. The "theme" of the poem turns out to be just one surface of a brilliantly coordinated whole. In the first part of the book, Robb defines and explores the development of Mallarmé's approach; in the second he applies the method to specific poems; in the conclusion he suggests ways in which the key might be applied to other poems and poets; and in the epilogue he offers a guided tour through Mallarmé's famously uninterpretable shipwreck poem, Un coup de dés. The book reveals how Mallarmé's self-reflecting, self-destructive work poses, and perhaps answers, the central questions of twentieth-century criticism.

Graham Robb has produced a masterpiece literary biography in which Balzac bursts into life on every page. The living manifestation of the colourful and varied world he described, yet at the same time its most astonishing exception, Balzac is the perfect subject for biography. Robb skilfully interweaves the life with the work to paint an indelible and brilliantly compelling portrait of one of the great tragicomic heroes of the nineteenth century, a man whose influence both in and outside his native France has been and is still immense.

Victor Hugo was the most important writer of the nineteenth century in France: leader of the Romantic movement, Revolutionary playwright, poet, epic novelist, author of the last universally accessible masterpieces in the European tradition, among them Les Misérables and The Hunchback of Notre Dame. He was also a radical political thinker and eventual exile from France, a gifted painter and architect, and a visionary who conversed with Virgil, Shakespeare, and Jesus Christ – in short, a tantalizing personality who dominated and maddened his contemporaries. Graham Robb has written an extraordinary biography that does full justice to the drama of his subject’s life – a life that Robb calls ‘the most lucid case of madness in literature’. By grasping the giant in his entirety and in his many disguises, Robb, bestselling author of The Discovery of France, rewards us with a panorama of French and European society from the Revolution to the dawn of the twentieth century. Victor Hugo won the Whitbread Award for Biography and the Royal Society of Literature award.

In Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century, award-winning author Graham Robb explores the story – and history – of male and female homosexuality in the UK and US, uncovering elements from legislature, literature, medicine and day-to-day life that point to a particularly self-aware and sophisticated culture of Victorian homosexuality. Drawing on famous cases such as the Wilde trials, as well as a wide variety of previously neglected sources, Robb recreates this era with great insight, humour and aplomb, exploding modern myths and restoring the real and vibrant truth of homosexual love to today’s readers: Strangers tells a tale that is in part familiar, and in part extremely surprising – a story of oppression and secrecy, but also of unexpected tolerance and familiarity.

Graham Robb's brilliant biography moves Rimbaud on from his perpetual adolescence where our imaginations have held him to show the extent of his transformations. From phenomenally precocious schoolboy he became Europe's most shocking and exhilarating poet, author of poems that range from the exquisite to the obscene. But this brief, five-year period as the enfant-terrible of French literature is only one small side of Rimbaud's story. Robb takes us on a biographical journey through three continents and many different identities. Rimbaud emerges from this stunning work of biographical scholarship and historical imagination as an even more complex, ambiguous and fascinating figure than ever before.

Graham Robb's The Ancient Paths will change the way you see European civilization.Inspired by a chance discovery, Robb became fascinated with the world of the Celts: their gods, their art, and, most of all, their sophisticated knowledge of science. His investigations gradually revealed something extraordinary: a lost map, of an empire constructed with precision and beauty across vast tracts of Europe. The map had been forgotten for almost two millennia and its implications were astonishing.Minutely researched and rich in revelations, The Ancient Paths brings to life centuries of our distant history and reinterprets pre-Roman Europe. Told with all of Robb's grace and verve, it is a dazzling, unforgettable book.

Best-selling author Graham Robb finds that the 2,000-year-old map of Ptolemy unlocks a central mystery of British history.

Unknown beyond the avant-garde at the time of his death, Arthur Rimbaud (1854-1891) has been one of the most destructive and liberating influences on twentieth-century culture. During his lifetime he was a bourgeois-baiting visionary, and the list of his known crimes is longer than the list of his published poems. But his posthumous career is even more astonishing: saint to symbolists and surrealists; poster child for anarchy and drug use; gay pioneer; a major influence on artists from Picasso to Bob Dylan.

A fresh examination of the development of homosexual culture during the nineteenth century in Europe and America describes the lives of gay men and women, how they discovered their sexuality, how they made contact with like-minded people, the relationship of gay culture to religion, and how homosexuals were treated by society. Reprint.

"[An] entertaining work of geographical sleuthing.... Surprises abound." -The New Yorker

A Spectator Book of the Year.'Robb has found a new format for writing history' – Alan Johnson'Rarely does history feel so beguiling' - The Observer'A treasure house of a book' - The SpectatorTaking you on a time-travelling adventure around the 'spindly, sea-wracked islands' we call home, The Discovery of Britain is history that's panoramic and intimate, poignant and shocking, seriously funny, and enlightening in the most surprising way.In the assured hands of Graham Robb, prize-winning author of The Discovery of France, and often from the unique vantage point of his bicycle, we encounter an entertaining cast of characters foreign and homegrown, drop in on places and events, and dwell on the successes and catastrophes across British history. From ancient settlements swallowed up by the sea and the creation of Stonehenge to the advent of multiculturalism and recent political earthquakes, all is seen as it’s never been seen before.With intriguing maps and illustrations throughout, The Discovery of Britain can be devoured whole or each chapter read in the time it takes to change a bicycle tyre or drink a cup of coffee. The wonderful choice of how to enjoy this original and sweeping history of Britain is yours.

'Robb has found a new format for writing history just as Craig Brown found a fresh way to write biography' – Alan Johnson'Rarely does history feel so beguiling' - The Observer'A treasure house of a book' - The SpectatorTaking you on a time-travelling adventure around the 'spindly, sea-wracked islands' we call home, The Discovery of Britain is history that's panoramic and intimate, poignant and shocking, seriously funny, and enlightening in the most surprising way.In the hands of the prize-winning author of The Discovery of France, and often from the unique vantage point of his bicycle, we encounter an entertaining cast of characters foreign and homegrown, drop in on places and events, and dwell on the successes and catastrophes across British history. From ancient settlements swallowed up by the sea and the creation of Stonehenge to the advent of multiculturalism and recent political earthquakes, all is seen as it’s never been seen before.With intriguing maps and illustrations throughout, The Discovery of Britain can be devoured whole or each chapter read in the time it takes to change a bicycle tyre or drink a cup of coffee. The wonderful choice of how to enjoy this original and sweeping history of Britain is yours.

'An extraordinary journey of discovery' - Daily Telegraph'Pedals along with never a dull paragraph . . . dazzling' - The Sunday TimesIlluminating, engrossing and full of surprises, The Discovery of France is the tale of Graham Robb's 14,000-mile journey across France on a bicycle to uncover an alternative history.France is a country famous for its intellectuals, its philosophers and writers, its fashion, food and wine. And yet the notion of 'the French' as one nation is relatively recent and, historically speaking, quite misleading. In order to discover the true past of France, Graham Robb realized it was necessary not only to go back in time, but also to go at a slower pace than modern life generally allows.An award-winning modern classic, The Discovery of France is a literary exploration of a remarkable nation. From maps and migration to magic, language and landscape, it reveals a France few will recognize. And all from the perspective of two wheels.Winner of the Duff Cooper and the Royal Society of Literature Ondaatje prizes, The Discovery of France is now included in the Picador Collection, a series celebrating fifty years of Picador books and showcasing the very best of modern literature.

‘A book worth reading’ Andrew Marr, Sunday TimesThe Debatable Land was an independent territory which used to exist between Scotland and England. At the height of its notoriety, it was the bloodiest region in Great Britain, fought over by Henry VIII, Elizabeth I and James V. After the Union of the Crowns, most of its population was slaughtered or deported and it became the last part of the country to be brought under the control of the state. Today, its history has been forgotten or ignored.When Graham Robb moved to a lonely house on the very edge of England, he discovered that the river which almost surrounded his new home had once marked the Debatable Land’s southern boundary. Under the powerful spell of curiosity, Robb began a journey – on foot, by bicycle and into the past – that would uncover lost towns and roads, reveal the truth about this maligned patch of land and result in more than one discovery of major historical significance.Rich in detail and epic in scope, The Debatable Land takes us from a time when neither England nor Scotland could be imagined to the present day, when contemporary nationalism and political turmoil threaten to unsettle the cross-border community once more. Writing with his customary charm, wit and literary grace, Graham Robb proves the Debatable Land to be a crucial, missing piece in the puzzle of British history.Includes a 16-page colour plate section.

A SPECTATOR and PROSPECT Book of the Year'Ceaselessly interesting, knowledgeable and evocative' Spectator'A fresh way to write history' Alan Johnson'A quirky, amused, erudite homage to France . . . ambitious and original' The Times_____France: An Adventure History is a profoundly original and endlessly entertaining history of France, from the first century BC to the present day, based on countless new discoveries and thirty years of exploring France on foot, by bicycle and in the library.Beginning with the Roman army’s first recorded encounter with the Gauls and ending with the Gilets Jaunes protests in the era of Emmanuel Macron, each chapter is an adventure in its own right. Along the way, readers will find the usual faces, events and themes of French history – Louis XIV, the French Revolution, the French Résistance, the Tour de France – but all presented in a shining new light.Graham Robb does not offer a standard dry list of facts and dates, but instead a panorama of France, teeming with characters, full of stories, journeys and coincidences, giving readers a thrilling sense of discovery and enlightenment. France: An Adventure History is a vivid, living history of one of the world’s most fascinating nations by a ceaselessly entertaining writer in complete command of subject and style._____'A rich and vibrant narrative . . . clear-eyed but imaginative storytelling' Financial Times'Full of life' Prospect

This is a profoundly original and entertaining history of France, from the first century bc to the present day, based on countless new discoveries and thirty years of exploring France on foot, by bicycle and in the library.Beginning with the Roman army’s first recorded encounter with the Gauls and ending with the gilet jaunes protests in the era of Emmanuel Macron, each chapter is an adventure in its own right. Along the way, readers will find the usual faces, events and themes of French history – Louis XIV, the French Revolution, the French Résistance, the Tour de France – but all presented in a shining new light.Graham Robb’s France: An Adventure History does not offer a standard dry list of facts and dates, but a panorama of France, teeming with characters, full of stories, journeys and coincidences, giving readers a thrilling sense of discovery and enlightenment. It is a vivid, living history of one of the world’s most fascinating nations by a ceaselessly entertaining writer in complete command of subject and style.