Annal:1985 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography
From AwardAnnals
Results of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize in the year 1985. For a ranked list of books, try an honor roll:
- James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Biography
- Nonfiction books
- Nonfiction authors
- Biography books
- Biography authors.
Jonathan Swift: A Hypocrite Reversed, A Critical Biography
- 1985 JT Black-Biography winner
- Score: 10.35
There has long been a need for an accessible, comprehensive—and affordable—single-volume life of Swift. This thoughtful, judicious biography promises to fill that need for our generation.
Few author’s reputations have fluctuated as wildly as Jonathan Swift’s. From the beginning, critics and biographers divided into two camps—one hailing a champion of liberty, the other reviling a sadistic misanthrope. For years, moreover, an understanding of Swift’s life was clouded by legends of his madness and mysteries surrounding his romantic attachments. Modern scholarship had swept all of this away, however, giving us a much sounder factual basis for comprehending the man’s life and work.
David Nokes portrays the author of Gulliver’s Travels in his multifarious roles as satirist, politician, churchman, and friend. Combining the latest findings of Swiftian scholarship with an astute critical eye, he restores a proper balance between the specialist critics who have overemphasized specific themes or genres in Swift’s work and the generalist critics who have missed many of the particularities…
