A sympathetic and illuminating portrait of the creator of one of the most famous characters in English literature. Hesketh Pearson was interested in the many contradictions in Sir Arthur Conan Doyle – the conventional Scottish doctor who pursued the occult, was interested in spiritualism and fairies, invented the immensely popular Sherlock Holmes yet came in time to detest his creation. Pearson’s very readable portrait is by turns admiring, witty and moving.

The operas of William Gilbert and Arthur Sullivan are an institution. Hesketh Pearson’s biography is of the two men who together formed a famous partnership and he is interested in them as individual, quite different personalities – one of the explanations behind their equally famous quarrel. Pearson describes their lives rather than criticise their works. As the operas such as ‘The Mikado’ and ‘The Pirates of Penzance’ live on the stage, here their authors come to life in a biography.

This is a portrait of a man whose life was more extraordinary than his novels. As a child he suffered from infantile paralysis, as a young man he experienced a tragic love affair, in middle age he endured prolonged illness and in old age financial ruin. Yet despite his difficult life Walter Scott became the first bestselling novelist, poet and historian. Hesketh Pearson’s study is of a unique man who was both great and good.

First published in 1942, Hesketh Pearson’s much lauded biography has been hailed as the standard work on George Bernard Shaw. Pearson was fortunate to have written it with the close cooperation of Shaw. Not only did Shaw check and correct all the facts, contribute and authenticate or reject anecdotes but he supplied what he referred to as ‘unique private history’ unavailable to others. The recorded conversations Shaw had with Pearson bring to life Shaw’s vivacity, charisma and prominence. ...

The American painter, James McNeil Whistler, is the subject of Hesketh Pearson’s biography. Whistler’s personality aroused more controversy in the nineteenth-century art world than that of anyone else. He is best known for his twilight scenes or ‘nocturnes’ such as the Thames at Battersea and for the famous portrait of his mother. His work was also to significantly influence interior decoration. But Whistler was as famous for his biting wit, fights, quarrels and sharp attacks on art critic...

Hesketh Pearson’s biography is the first to combine the story of the two men whose lives were inseparable in the history of literature. The book starts with Samuel Johnson’s career up to the moment he met Boswell, then we follow James Boswell’s until he met Johnson, and took him on a journey to the Hebrides. From this point their lives mingled. Pearson has included reliable contemporary accounts of Johnson, such as Fanny Burney’s, and has skilfully made sense of Boswell’s own writings to f...

A witty and fascinating account of nineteenth-century Anglo-American marriages—from the daughter of a Baltimore merchant who married Napoleon's brother to the Baltimore lady who married Edward VIII…In America the young are always ready to give to those who are older than themselves the full benefits of their inexperience…however, the American girl is always welcome. She brightens our dull dinner parties for us and makes life go pleasantly by for a season. In the race for coronets sh...

This book, first published in 1951, is a Postscript to Bernard Shaw: His Life and Personality—Hesketh Pearson's biography of Bernard Shaw, published in 1942, which became the standard work on Bernard Shaw. It was unique among other books on the same subject because Shaw himself gave every possible help to his biographer, allowing him to quote whatever he wished from published and unpublished correspondence. Shaw answered every question put to him and willingly revealed a great deal of info...

'You are a genuine soaker in Shakespeare, and have not read him as a task. You have him by heart.'—Bernard Shaw wrote in a letter to Hesketh Pearson.Before he became a well-known biographer, Hesketh Pearson was an actor. Few facts are known about Shakespeare, but with an actor's eye and a supreme self-confidence Pearson has drawn a recognisable portrait of Shakespeare the man—even telling us the colour of his hair and of his predilection for black-haired women. The plays and poems a...

Conan Doyle (1859-1930) will always be remembered for the character of Sherlock Holmes, but he was a prolific writer—of short stories, of science fiction and historical fiction1including The Exploits of Brigadier Gerard. In his comprehensive biography, Pearson considers how his life is reflected in his books—including his background as a doctor and his enduring (and public) belief in spiritualism.

The remarkable and tragic story of Oscar Wilde, legendary wit and conversationalist, author of perhaps the most perfect comedy in the English language, yet seemingly doomed by his own flawed temperament to suffer at the hands of a censorious and hypocritical society…

A popular biography which looks at the life of the playwright in part through the plays themselves. The intricacies of Elizabethan drama set the background for the tale of the greatest dramatist.