Charlotte Mew

<p>Penelope Fitzgerald's fascinating portrait of the tragic poet and her life at the heart of the Bloomsbury set.</p><br/> <p>Thomas Hardy hailed her as 'far and away the best living woman poet'; the formidable Charlotte Mew (1869–1928) was the writer of some of the best English poems of the twentieth century.</p><br/> <p>In her private life, to all appearances, Mew was a dutiful daughter living at home with her elderly mother. But this respectable façade hid painful truths – the Mews were penniless, two siblings had been declared insane and Charlotte was secretly lesbian, living a life of self-inflicted frustration. Despite literary success and a passionate, enchanting personality, eventually the conflicts within her drove her to despair, and she killed herself by swallowing household disinfectant.</p><br/> <p>In this gripping portrait, Penelope Fitzgerald brings all her novelist's skills into play, giving us touching story, and an entire life's emotional history.</p>