Wednesday, March 29, 2023

Robert Aickman: A Biography - Paperback Edition

Tartarus Press have announced a new, revised, paperback edition of Robert Aickman: A Biography by R. B. Russell. This was previously only available as a limited edition hardback and offers the first full exploration of its subject's role as author, aesthete, administrator and bon vivant.

We previously featured an interview with the author about the book.  

"Clear-eyed and dispassionate." Margaret Drabble, Times Literary Supplement

"Nobody knows more about this author of beautifully composed, hallucinatory short fiction than R.B. Russell. Robert Aickman: An Attempted Biography — the subtitle echoes Aickman’s memoir, The Attempted Rescue — reveals a man, both charming and rabidly opinionated, who seems to have polarized everyone he met. . . ." Michael Dirda, The Washington Post
 
"Masterful. . . Russell is quite aware that a biography of Aickman can only be attempted because, from moment to moment, what Aickman experienced and what he imagined are hard to separate. It is a virtue of this biography that it shows how, for Aickman, experience was what he imagined." The New York Sun
 
"...insightful, revealing information about a true master of horror." Dejan Ognjanovic, Rue Morgue
 
(Mark Valentine)

5 comments:

  1. Most curious about the minor change in the book's title?

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    1. Hi Jonathan. It was suggested by a number of commentators that my original title was too self-deprecating. And as it has been revised, it made sense to change it :-)

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  2. I have the hardcover edition published a year or so ago by Tartarus Press but this paperback edition mentions a "revised" edition. Are the revisions extensive enough for us to buy this edition also?

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    1. There are a number of very minor, small changes. The only significant additions follow a new interview with a friend of Aickman's I hadn't been able to talk to before, and some detail on his interest in Winifred Wagner (which was previously published here: https://tartaruspress.blogspot.com/2022/05/robert-aickman-and-winifred-wagner.html)

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  3. Personally, I'm inspired that a guy with teeth that bad did so well with the ladies.

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