"[A] prizeworthy literary biography . Though An Uncommon Reader is Helen Smith's first book, one would never know it: She delivers uncommonly good reading, and anyone interested in Edwardian fiction, the history of publishing or literary biography will find it a treat." --Michael Dirda, The Washington Post "In her sparkling biography, Helen Smith brilliantly brings to life the emerging aesthetics of contemporary English letters." --Elizabeth Lowry, The Wall Street Journal "A-grade . Well-researched, neatly written and not above the occasional flash of sly humor, An Uncommon Reader is, necessarily, the study of a circle, or rather a milieu, as much as the man who stares doggedly from its cover." --DJ Taylor, The Guardian "[ An Uncommon Reader ] rescues from obscurity one of the great English literary taste-makers of the twentieth century, and in the process sheds new light on some important writers, paints a portrait of the London publishing scene that remained largely unchanged until the big corporate buy-ups of the 1980s and 90s, and presents a character--Garnett himself--who is interesting, charming, and impressive . Garnett's Life will not need to be written again." --Andrew Morton, Times Literary Supplement "Edward Garnett gets the biography treatment in Smith's deeply researched new book.
A- " -- Entertainment Weekly "One of the many delights of Helen Smith's exemplary biography An Uncommon Reader is hearing Garnett's own voice, sometimes pedantic, sometimes carried away with enthusiasm, pronouncing from the pages . There is a nugget on every page of Smith's biography. She spirits up the whole jealous, bitching, scribbling literary world of the age. Garnett's life, as she tells it, is witty, tragic and exultant. I could not put it down." --Laura Freeman, The Times (U.K.) "Helen Smith's biography of [Garnett] is essential reading for anyone who cares about modernism.
" -- The Sunday Times (U.K.) "Exacting . Smith demonstrates convincingly how Garnett's instincts proved correct in case after case, from E.M. Forester to John Galsworthy to Arnold Bennett and Edward Thomas." --Eric Banks, 4 Columns "Rich in anecdote and knowledge, this is an exceptional biography of an exceptional human being." --John Carey, The Times (U.
K.) " The strong-arming work of Edward Garnett is the bright and also dark star of Helen Smith's lovely, telling biography. It's a sort of Conrad novel manqué -- pleasingly peopled by Russian anarchists and exiles, Fabians, pacifists, vegetarians and free-ish lovers, the keen Russophiliacs of the culture, with droves of writers, critics, and publishers all contentiously scrabbling away, all got up by Godfather Garnett." --Valentine Cunningham, The Spectator (UK) "Superb . Smith, as Garnett would have appreciated, has an eye for the telling detail . and her book paints a textured picture of what life was like for people of Garnett's milieu . With Smith's fine sense of pacing and a fascinating subject, her book both delights and informs." -- Publishers Weekly (starred review) "[An] assured literary debut .
A well-informed perspective on early-20th-century literature." -- Kirkus.