From the Land of Shadows - Softcover

'These literary-critical essays are compact with wit and penetration but also have a kind of freshness about them, as if the author has never got over his first rapture of enjoyment at the sheer thisness of poetry and prose. James is in the tradition of Hazlitt, Bagehot, and Desmond MacCarthy, with a gusto worthy to succeed theirs and a philosophy well set out in his own introduction. "Literature", he writes, "says most things itself, when it is allowed to." Criticism like this expands that allowance and adds to its pleasure' John Bayley, Observer 'His outstanding talent is as a cicerone, guiding the ignorant traveller with patience, knowledge and wit round some favourite literary edifice and communicating his own admiration of it to the goggling and fascinated visitor ...the lasting impression is of our critic's truly amazing breadth of reference' Times Literary Supplement 'Mr James is hungry for -- and not unworthy of -- engagement with important issues. A collection of dignity and coherence ...tellingly timely' Sunday Times

Clive James is the author of more than forty books. As well as essays, he has published collections of literary and television criticism, travel writing, verse and novels, plus five volumes of autobiography, Unreliable Memoirs, Falling Towards England, May Week Was In June, North Face of Soho and The Blaze of Obscurity. As a television performer he appeared regularly for both the BBC and ITV, most notably as writer and presenter of the Postcard series of travel documentaries. His popular Radio 4 series A Point of View has been published in volume form. He has also published several poetry collections, a verse commentary of Proust, Gate of Lilacs, and a translation of Dante’s The Divine Comedy. In 1992 he was made a Member of the Order of Australia and in 2003 he was awarded the Philip Hodgins memorial medal for literature. He holds honorary doctorates from Sydney University and the University of East Anglia. In 2012 he was appointed CBE and in 2013 an Officer of the Order of Australia.