Unreceived Opinions: Thoughts on Writers and Writing.

HOLROYD, Michael.

$125.00

Item Number: 126853

New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1974.

First edition of the award-winning biographer’s collection of literary essays. Octavo, original cloth. Association copy, inscribed by the author on the title page, “For Sally with love M Holroyd.” The recipient, British photojournalist Sally Soames, worked for The Sunday Times from 1968 until 2000 and was highly regarded for her exclusively black and white portraits of many of the most prominent figures of the 20th century including Menachem Begin, Margaret Atwood, Margaret Thatcher, Sean Connery, Rudolf Nureyev, Alec Guinness and Andy Warhol. Soames, who was known to be a warm and personal journalist, performed extensive research on the subjects of her photographs and developed intimate rapports with them during her process resulting in intimate and revealing portraits. In addition to the several world leaders Soames came to know and photograph, she captured the creative energy and personality of some of the world’s most gifted authors, poets, and playwrights. She published two books of photographs during her lifetime, Manpower (1987) with text by Robin Morgan and an introduction by Harold Evans and Writers (1995) with a preface by Norman Mailer. With an additional autograph notecard signed by the author to Soames laid in. Near fine in a very good dust jacket.

Unreceived Opinions contains the award-winning biographer's provocative and witty thoughts on the art and business of biography, the true function of literature, the enjoyment of unfashionable writers, as well as autobiographical essays and pieces on, among others, Virginia Woolf, Lytton Stachey, and Augustus John.