John Bayley is a critic and novelist. His books include Elegy for Iris and The Power of Delight: A Lifetime in Literature.
-
What Henry Knew
July 15, 2004
The Master
by Colm Tóibín
-
Sex & the City
March 25, 2004
Strangers: Homosexual Love in the Nineteenth Century
by Graham Robb
Queer Street: Rise and Fall of an American Culture, 1947–1985
by James McCourt
-
Chameleon Genius
December 18, 2003
Pushkin: A Biography
by T.J. Binyon
-
Silent Music
November 20, 2003
Melodies Unheard: Essays on the Mysteries of Poetry
by Anthony Hecht
Collected Later Poems
by Anthony Hecht
Coming of Age as a Poet: Milton, Keats, Eliot, Plath
by Helen Vendler
Speaking of Beauty
by Denis Donoghue
-
Flying for Poland
June 12, 2003
-
Haunted by the Russian Devil
February 27, 2003
Pushkin’s Children: Writings on Russia and Russians
by Tatyana Tolstaya, translated from the Russianby Jamey Gambrell, with an introduction by Alma Guillermoprieto
The Slynx
by Tatyana Tolstaya, translated from the Russian by Jamey Gambrell
-
Scratch a Russian
November 7, 2002
Natasha’s Dance: A Cultural History of Russia
by Orlando Figes
-
Sterne’s Great Game
October 24, 2002
Laurence Sterne: A Life
by Ian Campbell Ross
-
The King’s Trumpeter
July 18, 2002
The Long Recessional:The Imperial Life of Rudyard Kipling
by David Gilmour
-
The Hard Hitter
April 11, 2002
The Complete Works of Isaac Babel
edited by Nathalie Babel, translated from the Russian by Peter Constantine, with an introduction by Cynthia Ozick
-
Fresh Oysters
November 29, 2001
Reading Chekhov: A Critical Journey
by Janet Malcolm
The Complete Early Short Stories of Anton Chekhov, Volume One (1880–82): ‘He and She’ and Other Stories
translated from the Russian by Peter Sekirin
-
What Happened to the Hippopotamus’s Wife?
May 17, 2001
The Biographer’s Tale A.S. Byatt
On Histories and Stories A.S. Byatt
-
The Last Puritan
March 29, 2001
Orwell: Wintry Conscience of a Generation Jeffrey Meyers
-
A Passage to Colombo
November 2, 2000
Anil’s Ghost
by Michael Ondaatje
-
The Greatest!
August 10, 2000
William Shakespeare: The Man Behind the Genius
by Anthony Holden
Shakespeare’s Language
by Frank Kermode
-
Phantom Observations
June 29, 2000
Music and Silence
by Rose Tremain
-
Pushkin’s Shakespearean Lover
May 11, 2000
-
It Happened at Elsinore
March 23, 2000
Gertrude and Claudius
by John Updike
-
The Heart of the Matter
February 24, 2000
The Romantics
by Pankaj Mishra
-
It Happened One Night
December 16, 1999
The Guest from the Future:Anna Akhmatova and Isaiah Berlin
by György Dalos, Translated from the German by Antony Wood
The Diaries of Nikolay Punin
edited by Sidney Monas, and Jennifer Greene Krupala, Translated from the Russian by Jennifer Greene Krupala
-
Eminent Victorian
October 21, 1999
George Eliot: The Last Victorian
by Kathryn Hughes
-
The Strange Death of Pushkin
April 8, 1999
Pushkin’s Button
by Serena Vitale, Translated from the Italian by Ann Goldstein, by Jon Rothschild
-
Under the Overcoat
March 18, 1999
The Collected Tales of Nikolai Gogol
translated by Richard Pevear, by Larissa Volokhonsky
-
Green and Secretive Islands
February 18, 1999
The Folding Cliffs: A Narrative
by W.S. Merwin
The River Sound
by W.S. Merwin
-
What Follies and Paradoxes!
November 19, 1998
Toward Another Shore: Russian Thinkers Between Necessity and Chance
by Aileen M. Kelly
-
To the Pith of London’s Heart
October 8, 1998
The Giant, O’Brien
by Hilary Mantel
-
The Way We Write Now
July 16, 1998
Without
by Donald Hall
Going Fast
by Frederick Seidel
Ten Commandments
by J.D. McClatchy
Blizzard of One
by Mark Strand
On Love
by Edward Hirsch
-
Under the Overcoat
June 25, 1998
The Life of Insects
by Victor Pelevin, Translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield
Omon Ra
by Victor Pelevin, Translated from the Russian by Andrew Bromfield
-
The Naked Truth
December 18, 1997
The Art of Shakespeare’s Sonnets by Helen Vendler
-
Slightly Sacred Poet
October 9, 1997
Subhuman Redneck Poems by Les Murray
-
The Double Life
May 29, 1997
The Untouchable by John Banville
-
Class Act
May 15, 1997
Palimpsest by Gore Vidal
-
Living Ghosts
March 27, 1997
Lament for the Makers by W.S. Merwin
The Vixen by W.S. Merwin
Flight Among the Tombs by Anthony Hecht
The Bounty by Derek Walcott
-
Poet of Holy Dread
November 14, 1996
Paul Celan: Poet, Survivor, Jew by John Felstiner
-
Alice, or The Art of Survival
February 15, 1996
Lewis Carroll: A Biography by Morton N. Cohen
The Complete Sylvie and Bruno by Lewis Carroll, iillustrated by Renée Flower
-
Feet on the Ground
November 16, 1995
Louis MacNeice by Jon Stallworthy
-
The Backward Look
August 10, 1995
The Life of Arseniev: Youth by Ivan Bunin, Books 14 translated by Gleb Struve, by Hamish Miles, Book 5 translated by Heidi Hillis, by Susan McKean, by Sven A. Wolf, edited, annotated and with an introduction by Andrew Baruch Wachtel
Ivan Bunin: Russian Requiem 18851920, A Portrait from Letters, Diaries, and Fiction edited with an introduction and notes by Thomas Gaiton Marullo
Ivan Bunin: From the Other Shore 19201933, A Portrait from Letters, Diaries, and Fiction edited with an introduction and notes by Thomas Gaiton Marullo
-
A Moment’s Truth
March 23, 1995
History: The Home Movie by Craig Raine
-
‘Trapping Fairies in West Virginia’
December 22, 1994
The Oxford Book of Comic Verse edited by John Gross
Max Beerbohm: Collected Verse edited with an introduction and notes by J. G. Riewald
A Christmas Garland woven by Max Beerbohm. illustrations by the author, Introduction by N. John Hall
-
Doubles
November 17, 1994
The Master of Petersburg by J.M. Coetzee
Doubling the Point: Essays and Interviews by J. M. Coetzee, edited by David Attwell
Demons by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Richard Pevear, by Larissa Volokhonsky
-
Too Polish for the Poles
October 6, 1994
Trans-Atlantyk by Witold Gombrowicz, translated by Carolyn French, translated by Nina Karsov
-
Off the Map
May 12, 1994
Brazil by John Updike
-
Singing in the Rain
February 17, 1994
Strange Pilgrims: Twelve Stories by Gabriel García Márquez, translated by Edith Grossman
Gabriel García Márquez: Solitude and Solidarity by Michael Bell
-
Sons and Brothers
February 3, 1994
The Correspondence of William James Vol. I: William & Henry 18611884 Vol. II: William & Henry 18851896 edited by Ignas K. Skrupskelis, edited by Elizabeth M. Berkeley
The Correspondence of Henry James & the House of MacMillan, 18771914 edited by Rayburn S. Moore
Henry James: Collected Travel Writings: Vol. 1, Great Britain and America (English Hours, The American Scene, Other Travels) Vol. 2, The Continent (A Little Tour in France, Italian Hours, Other Travels)
Henry James, Lettere a Miss Allen (Letters to Miss Allen)
-
‘One Life, One Writing’
November 4, 1993
A Different Person: A Memoir by James Merrill
Selected Poems: 19461985 by James Merrill
-
Not Nulla Salvatio
October 7, 1993
-
Comrades
August 12, 1993
Lenin’s Tomb: The Last Days of the Soviet Empire by David Remnick
-
Night Mail
June 24, 1993
Against Forgetting: Twentieth-Century Poetry of Witness edited and with an introduction by Carolyn Forché
-
‘Anna of All the Russias’
May 13, 1993
The Complete Poems of Anna Akhmatova, Updated and Expanded Edition translated by Judith Hemschemeyer, edited by Roberta Reeder
Remembering Anna Akhmatova by Anatoly Nayman, translated by Wendy Rosslyn
In a Shattered Mirror: The Later Poetry of Anna Akhmatova
by Susan Amert
-
The Master at War
January 28, 1993
Henry James: The Imagination of Genius, A Biography
by Fred Kaplan
-
Gallant Pastiche
January 14, 1993
The Complete Poems by C. Day Lewis, with an introduction by Jill Balcon
-
Time of Indifference
December 17, 1992
The Porcupine by Julian Barnes
-
Answers Without Questions
November 5, 1992
Mr. Mani by A.B. Yehoshua, translated by Hillel Halkin
Katerina by Aharon Appelfeld, translated by Jeffrey M. Green
-
Irishness
June 25, 1992
Seeing Things by Seamus Heaney
The Rough Field
by John Montague
Mount Eagle
by John Montague
Gorse Fires
by Michael Longley
-
Fighting for the Crown
April 23, 1992
Wise Children by Angela Carter
Love by Angela Carter
The Bloody Chamber and Other Stories by Angela Carter
Heroes and Villains
by Angela Carter
The Infernal Desire Machines of Dr. Hoffman
by Angela Carter
Come Unto These Yellow Sands by Angela Carter
The Old Wives’ Fairy Tale Book edited by Angela Carter
The Sadeian Woman and the Ideology of Pornography by Angela Carter
-
Innocents at Home
April 9, 1992
Paradise News by David Lodge
The Gate of Angels by Penelope Fitzgerald
-
Getting to Know You
December 5, 1991
Talking It Over by Julian Barnes
-
In Which We Serve
November 7, 1991
Master and Commander
Post Captain
HMS Surprise
The Mauritius Command
Desolation Island
The Fortune of War
The Surgeon’s Mate
The Ionian Mission
Treason’s Harbour
The Far Side of the World
The Reverse of the Medal
The Letter of Marque
The Thirteen-Gun Salute
The Nutmeg of Consolation
-
Richly Flows Contingency
August 15, 1991
Flow Chart by John Ashbery
-
A New Dostoevsky?
June 13, 1991
The Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky, translated by Richard Pevear, by Larissa Volokhonsky
-
Did It Flow?
April 11, 1991
Hourglass by Danilo Ki, translated by Ralph Manheim
Mendelssohn Is On The Roof by Jirí Weil, translated by Marie Winn
The Miracle Game by Josef Skvorecky, translated by Paul Wilson
-
Pasternak’s Great Fairy Tale
March 7, 1991
-
V.S.P.
November 8, 1990
A Careless Widow and Other Stories
by V.S. Pritchett
At Home and Abroad
by V.S. Pritchett
Lasting Impressions
by V.S. Pritchett
-
In God’s Playground
July 19, 1990
Lucifer Unemployed by Aleksander Wat, translated by Lillian Vallee, foreword by Czeslaw Milosz
Killing the Second Dog by Marek Hlasko, translated by Tomasz Mirkowicz
Missing Pieces by Stanislaw Benski, translated by Walter Arndt
Bohin Manor by Tadeusz Konwicki, translated by Richard Lourie
Rondo by Kazimierz Brandys, translated by Jaroslaw Anders
The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman by Andrzej Szczypiorski, translated by Klara Glowczewska
-
The Real Thing
May 17, 1990
The Book of Evidence by John Banville
-
The Fire Next Time
March 15, 1990
The Fur Hat by Vladimir Voinovich, translated by Susan Brownsberger
Siberia on Fire: Stories and Essays by Valentin Rasputin, selected, translated, and with an introduction by Gerald Mikkelson, by Margaret Winchell
-
Henry James Mix-Up
January 18, 1990
-
God and the Devil
December 21, 1989
August 1914: The Red Wheel/Knot I by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, translated by H. T. Willetts
-
The Master at Home
December 7, 1989
A Ring of Conspirators: Henry James and His Literary Circle, 1895-1915 by Miranda Seymour
Thinking in Henry James by Sharon Cameron
The Pop World of Henry James: From Fairy Tales to Science Fiction
by Adeline R. Tintner
-
Living with Trollope
August 17, 1989
The Chronicler of Barsetshire: A Life of Anthony Trollope
by R.H. Super
Trollope: Living With Character by Stephen Wall
He Knew She Was Right: The Independent Woman in the Novels of Anthony Trollope
by Jane Nardin
-
Russian Roulette: Bad Bet
April 27, 1989
-
The Power of Delight
April 13, 1989
Letters and Drawings of Bruno Schulz with Selected Prose edited by Jerzy Ficowski, translated by Walter Arndt, with Victoria Nelson
-
God’s Greene
March 16, 1989
The Captain and the Enemy
by Graham Greene
Graham Greene by Neil McEwan
A Reader’s Guide to Graham Greene by Paul O'Prey
-
Best and Worst
January 19, 1989
Dickens: A Biography by Fred Kaplan
-
Mr. Know-all
November 24, 1988
Tolstoy by A. N. Wilson
Tolstoy: The Ultimate Reconciliation by Martine de Courcel, translated by Peter Levi
-
Death and the Dichter
September 29, 1988
Posthumous Papers of a Living Author by Robert Musil, translated by Peter Wortsman
Five Women by Robert Musil, translated by Eithne Wilkins, by Ernst Kaiser
Robert Musil by Lowell A. Bangerter
-
Something Childish
April 14, 1988
Diary, Volume 1 by Witold Gombrowicz, edited by Jan Kott, translated by Lillian Vallee
-
Oblomov’s Travels
March 3, 1988
The Frigate Pallada by Ivan Goncharov, translated by Klaus Goetze
-
Fun While It Lasted
December 17, 1987
The Neo-pagans: Rupert Brooke and the Ordeal of Youth by Paul Delany
-
Riding the Bronze Horse
October 22, 1987
Partings
by Leonid Borodin, translated by David Floyd
Pushkin House by Andrei Bitov, translated by Susan Brownsberger
-
Poet of the Air
October 8, 1987
Marina Tsvetaeva: The Woman, her World and her Poetry by Simon Karlinsky
A Captive Lion: The Life of Marina Tsvetayeva by Elaine Feinstein
Selected Poems of Marina Tsvetayeva translated by Elaine Feinstein
-
Country Life
April 9, 1987
The Enigma of Arrival by V.S. Naipaul
-
The Genius of Shandy Hall
March 26, 1987
Laurence Sterne: The Later Years by Arthur H. Cash
-
An Excellent Man
December 4, 1986
Chekhov by Henri Troyat, translated by Michael Henry Heim
-
An Art of Self-Discovery
October 23, 1986
Collected Poems by Edward Thomas
A Language not to be Betrayed: Selected Prose of Edward Thomas selected and with an introduction by Edna Longley
Edward Thomas: A Portrait by R. George Thomas
-
Mastering Speech
June 12, 1986
Less Than One: Selected Essays by Joseph Brodsky
-
On Philip Larkin
January 16, 1986
-
Big Three
December 5, 1985
Letters: Summer 1926
by Boris Pasternak, by Rainer Maria Rilke, by Marina Tsvetayeva, edited by Yevgeny Pasternak, by Yelena Pasternak, by Konstantin M. Azadovsky, translated by Margaret Wettlin, by Walter Arndt
Letters on Cézanne by Rainer Maria Rilke, edited by Clara Rilke, translated by Joel Agee
-
First Loves
October 24, 1985
John Ruskin: The Early Years, 18191859 by Tim Hilton
-
Only Disconnect
August 15, 1985
Selected Letters of E.M. Forster Vol. II, 19211970 edited by Mary Lago, edited by P.N. Furbank
-
Double Life
May 9, 1985
The Life of Jane Austen by John Halperin
A Goodly Heritage: A History of Jane Austen’s Family by George Holbert Tucker
-
Life in the Head
March 28, 1985
Wolf Solent by John Cowper Powys, with an introduction by Robertson Davies
Weymouth Sands by John Cowper Powys, with an introduction by James Purdy
-
Kitsch and the Novel
November 22, 1984
Wild Berries
by Yevgeny Yevtushenko, translated by Antonina W. Bouis
The Compromise
by Sergei Dovlatov, translated by Anne Frydman
It’s Me, Eddie: A Fictional Memoir by Edward Limonov, translated by S.L. Campbell
The Island of Crimea
by Vassily Aksyonov, translated by Michael Henry Heim
The Burn by Vassily Aksyonov, translated by Michael Glenny
-
Cracking ‘The Golden Bowl’
March 1, 1984
-
Poems with a Heroine
January 19, 1984
Poems by Anna Akhmatova, selected and translated by Lyn Coffin, introduction by Joseph Brodsky
Akhmatova’s Petersburg by Sharon Leiter
-
The Upper Depths
December 22, 1983
Writers in Russia: 1917-1978 by Max Hayward, edited with an introduction by Patricia Blake, preface by Leonard Schapiro
-
Byron and the ‘Lively Life’
June 2, 1983
Byron’s Letters and Journals edited by Leslie A. Marchand
Lord Byron: Selected Letters and Journals
edited by Leslie A. Marchand
Byron by Frederic Raphael
Byron: A Poet Before His Public by Philip W. Martin
-
Looking in on Pushkin
February 3, 1983
-
The Two Hardys
October 7, 1982
Thomas Hardy: A Biography by Michael Millgate
The Short Stories of Thomas Hardy by Kristin Brady
The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy: Volume 3, 1902-1908 edited by Richard Little Purdy, edited by Michael Millgate
-
In Defense of Wordsworth
May 13, 1982
-
Family Man
February 18, 1982
The Love Letters of William and Mary Wordsworth edited by Beth Darlington
My Dearest Love: Letters of William and Mary Wordsworth, 1810 by Blackwell’s Rare Books, Fyfield Manor, Abingdon, Oxford, OX13 5LR edited in facsimile by Beth Darlington, foreword by Jonathan Wordsworth
-
The Novelist as Pedagogue
December 3, 1981
Lectures on Russian Literature
by Vladimir Nabokov, edited by Fredson Bowers
-
Return of the Native
June 25, 1981
The Issa Valley by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Louis Iribarne
Native Realm: A Search for Self-Definition paperback edition by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Catherine S. Leach
Emperor of the Earth: Modes of Eccentric Vision by Czeslaw Milosz
Bells in Winter translated by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Lillian Vallee
The Captive Mind by Czeslaw Milosz, translated by Jane Zielonko. (with a new foreword by the author)
-
The All-Star Victorian
December 18, 1980
Tennyson: The Unquiet Heart by Robert Bernard Martin
The Tennyson Album: A Biography in Original Photographs by Andrew Wheatcroft
-
A Poet’s Tragedy
October 23, 1980
The Demesne of the Swans
by Marina Tsvetaeva, translated and edited by Robin Kemball
Tsvetaeva: A Pictorial Biography
edited by Ellendea Proffer, translated by J. Marin King
A Captive Spirit: Selected Prose
by Marina Tsvetaeva, translated and edited by J. Marin King
-
The Two Solzhenitsyns
June 26, 1980
The Oak and the Calf: Sketches of Literary Life in the Soviet Union by Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, translated by Harry Willetts
-
How to Read a Book
June 12, 1980
The Tale Bearers: Literary Essays by V.S. Pritchett
-
But Will It Play in Belgrade?
April 17, 1980
-
Windows on Russia
February 21, 1980
The Russian Empire: A Portrait in Photographs by Chloe Obolensky, with an introduction by Max Hayward
Windows on the River Neva: A Memoir Books, Wellfleet, Massachusetts 026677) by Paul Grabbe
-
Life Studies
November 8, 1979
Vasko Popa: Collected Poems 1943-1976 translated by Anne Pennington, with an introduction by Ted Hughes. The Persea Series of Poetry in Translation, general editor Daniel Weissbort
-
The Broken Spine
May 3, 1979
Andrei Platonov: Collected Works
Chevengur by Andrei Platonov, translated by Anthony Olcott
Isaac Babel: The Forgotten Prose translated by Nicholas Stroud
-
Spender & Auden
March 8, 1979
-
A Poet in Politics
January 25, 1979
The Thirties and After: Poetry, Politics, People 1933-1970 by Stephen Spender
-
Pioneers and Phantoms
July 20, 1978
The Hill of Evil Counsel by Amos Oz, translated by Nicholas de Lange
Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass by Bruno Schulz, translated by Celina Wieniewska
-
Cinderella in Reverse
July 15, 1976
Freshwater: A Comedy by Virginia Woolf, edited by Lucio P. Ruotolo
The Letters of Virginia Woolf Volume I: 1888-1912 edited by Nigel Nicolson, edited by Joanne Trautman
Virginia Woolf and Her World by John Lehmann
-
Paleface
April 15, 1976
Rudyard Kipling and His World by Kingsley Amis
Kipling: The Glass, the Shadow and the Fire by Philip Mason
-
One of the Family
March 6, 1975
Marcel Proust by Roger Shattuck
-
From the Ridiculous to the Ridiculous
September 19, 1974
Napoleon Symphony by Anthony Burgess
-
Seer of the Ego
July 18, 1974
Stendhal by Joanna Richardson
-
Balzac Possessed
October 4, 1973
Balzac by V.S. Pritchett
S/Z by Roland Barthes
-
Them and Us
October 19, 1972
We: A Novel of the Future
by Yevgeny Zamyatin, translated by Mirra Ginsburg
A Soviet Heretic: Essays by Yevgeny Zamyatin edited and translated by Mirra Ginsburg
-
Trouble in the Family
December 30, 1971
The Last Year of Leo Tolstoy by Valentin Bulgakov, translated by Ann Dunnigan, with an Introduction by George Steiner
Tolstoy, My Father: Reminiscences by Ilya Tolstoy, translated by Ann Dunnigan
-
Irresistible Dickens
October 8, 1970
The World of Charles Dickens by Angus Wilson
Dickens the Craftsman: Strategies of Presentation edited by Robert B. Partlow Jr.
The English Novel from Dickens to Lawrence by Raymond Williams
Dickens 1970 edited by Michael Slater
Charles Dickens’ Uncollected Writings from Household Words edited by Harry Stone
The Moral Art of Dickens (to be published later this fall) by Barbara Hardy
The Inimitable Dickens
by A.E. Dyson
-
Idealism and Its Critic
June 18, 1970
Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, and Nietzsche by Lev Shestov, translated by Bernard Martin, translated by Spencer E. Roberts
Kierkegaard and the Existential Philosophy by Lev Shestov, translated by Elinor Hewitt
Potestas Clavium by Lev Shestov, translated by Bernard Martin
Chekhov, and Other Essays future date) by Lev Shestov
Athens and Jerusalem by Lev Shestov, translated by Bernard Martin
Essays in Russian Literature: The Conservative View by Lev Shestov et al., translated and edited by Spencer Roberts