Against Oblivion: Some Lives Of The Twentieth-Century Poets

'Against Oblivion' is Ian Hamilton's idiosyncratic, controversial and thoroughly enjoyable examination of forty-five twentieth-century poets, each complete with a biographical and critical sketch, and a selection of work. Conceived in response to Samuel Johnson's classic 'Lives Of The English Poets', it displays the sharpness of thought and phrase that made Hamilton one of the finest critics of our time, and shines the light of his brilliance on both their work and their (often unusual) lives.