English Voices

by Ferdinand Mount

In his introduction to this selection of his biographical articles, Mount concludes that language is a key constituent of Englishness, and that ‘the mongrel richness of the tongue generates an almost limitless individualityâ€. Proving his point, the 50 portraits he presents range from ‘old masters†such as Shakespeare and Pepys, to ‘early moderns†such as Rudyard Kipling, and modern writers, churchmen, politicians and those ‘in search of Englandâ€, among the latter, Pevsner, Betjeman and Ronald Blythe.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction

512 pages, Hardcover

Published January 1, 2016

About the author

Ferdinand Mount was born in 1939. For many years he was a columnist at the Spectator and then the Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Times. In between, he was head of the Downing Street Policy Unit and then editor of the Times Literary Supplement. He is now a prize-winning novelist and author of, most recently, the bestselling memoir Cold Cream. He lives in London.

Reviews

[Derek Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Entertaining and stylishly written collection of essays (primarily book reviews). Mount is a master of the short form - and a highly penetrating literary critic. His dissection of Virginia Woolf, for example, is spot on.

[Delphine · Rating 3 out of 5]

In the blurb, English voices is advertised as a selection of portraits of England's finest authors, politicians and clergymen. However, the portraits are not an introduction to those figures: they appeared as literary reviews in the London review of books and the Spectator and offer their view on recently published biographies. It is, in other words, a metaview of a metaview, with all its limitations: density, many oblique references and reliant on immense foreknowledge on the part of the reader.

With the exception of the chapters on the clergymen and the Victorians, I enjoyed most of the portraits. Mount shies away from the classic reverence for Virginia Woolf and W.G. Sebald: he exposes Sebald as banal, and refers to Woolf's style as 'pseudo-poetic slipstream': right on! I discovered some wonderful characters (scientist prof. Derek Jackson, novelist George Gissing, regional writer Nikolaus Pevsner) that I will definitely look into.

[Chris · Rating 4 out of 5]

The sort of book I don't read often enough these days: a collection of extended book reviews and essays, mostly from The Spectator and London Review of Books. Subjects range widely: 20th century Angry Young Men; Classic writers; architecture (of which I know less than little); political figures from the distant and recent past.

It's a good, vigorous work-out, a forced widening of the horizons beyond easy current entertainment or political name-calling. The tone's balanced, judicious, knowledgeable and - irrespective of whether all the judgements are correct or ones with which I agree - an invitation to engage seriously with serious subjects.

A fine piece of work.

[David Mundy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written and fluent short essays on a wide range of mostly literary and political figures.

[Judith Bailey · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really enjoyed dipping in and out of this book.