著者としてのわが生涯のあらすじ

対象読者

You will enjoy this book if you like Victorian voices, literary gossip, old letters and verse, and the story of a writer who turns a stammer into a calling.

本の内容

How does a man who burned his own diaries end up writing his life story? Martin Farquhar Tupper, a Victorian poet and barrister, opens this book by refusing to write it. He sends a friend a sonnet saying his life is in his books, and then he writes the book anyway.

My Life as an Author came when he was seventy-six. Tupper is best known for Proverbial Philosophy, short moral essays in verse that sold in huge numbers. You get floggings, a stammer, séances and two tours of America.

『著者としてのわが生涯』についての質問

What is My Life as an Author about?

It is Martin Tupper's account of his literary life, from childhood and schooldays through Oxford and the law to his books, his travels and his friendships. He quotes his own poems, letters and reviews as he goes.

What is Proverbial Philosophy, which Tupper keeps mentioning?

It is Tupper's best-known work, a series of short essays on subjects like love, marriage, friendship and education. They are written in rhythmic, unrhymed lines modelled on the Proverbs of Solomon, and it sold widely in Britain and America.

Did Tupper really have a stammer?

Yes. He says a serious speech impediment troubled him from fifteen to thirty-five and kept him out of the Church and the courtroom. He describes the cures he tried and says he overcame it through prayer and better health.

When was My Life as an Author written?

Tupper wrote it late in life, when he was seventy-six, with references to events into the 1880s. It is a true memoir in his own voice, illustrated with travel journals, scrapbooks, letters and published pieces.

Is My Life as an Author easy to read?

Its chapters are short and mostly self-contained, so you can open it almost anywhere. Tupper writes in a chatty, friendly voice, full of stories about schools, travel, famous friends and odd events, with poems to sample along the way.