Raffles: And the Golden Opportunity - Softcover

Victoria Glendinning

3.57

231 ratings by Goodreads

9781846686047: Raffles: And the Golden Opportunity

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1846686040 ISBN 13: 9781846686047

Publisher: Profile Books Ltd, 2013

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Raffles

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About the Author:

Victoria Glendinning is a prizewinning biographer, the author of lives of Elizabeth Bowen, Vita Sackville-West, Edith Sitwell, Trollope and Leonard Woolf. She has also written three novels, The Grown-Ups, ElectricityandFlight. She is a Vice-President of English PEN, Vice-President of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded a CBE in 1998. Born in Yorkshire, she now lives in Dorset. She is currently working on a novel about nuns.

Review:

Spirited, fluent and immaculately researched ... Glendinning's book, with its breezy prose and brisk judgments, makes a splendid tribute to a great British character - the kind of man who gives empire a good name * Sunday Times * Marvellously readable, personally illuminating and highly entertaining * Guardian * Magnificent ... By honing in on such a great life for her first non-literary biography Ms Glendinning is in danger of giving imperialism a good name * The Economist * At last. A truly magnificent biography of the most incorrigible of empire-builders. Victoria Glendinning has produced a judicious and utterly compelling account of the man who would change the map of South East Asia -- John Keay A sparkling new life of Raffles . . . compellingly related by Glendinning . . . unputdownable . . . Glendinning has rescued Raffles from decades of neglect and post-colonial guilt. Vivid, beautifully written and a terrific read, this is a wonderful biography * Literary Review * Glendinning's gift is delivering a story that moves with the alacrity of an absorbing novel * Scotsman * Glendinning's great gift for story and fine feeling for character brightens this analysis of Raffles' still ambiguous reputation * Times * Magical and meticulous . . . Raffles had achieved something which would change both the economic and political geography of South-east Asia and as we learn from these exotic yet careful pages he did a great deal more besides * Daily Express * a fascinating, sympathetic portrait of an enigmatic figure * Observer * easy paced, absorbing * Independent * a compelling rollercoaster * Daily Mail Books of the Year * Engaging... shows Glendinning's sympathetic understanding of the human drama at the heart of this story of imperial adventure. -- Anne Chisholm * Sunday Telegraph *

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