Awards

• Short-listed for CWA Dagger for Non-Fiction 2002 (UK)
• Short-listed for Guardian First Book Award 2001 (UK)
• Short-listed for James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Biography) 2002
• Short-listed for Whitbread Biography Award 2003 (UK)
• Short-listed for Whitbread Book Awards: Biography Category 2002
• Shortlisted for CWA Macallan Gold Dagger for Non-Fiction 2002.
• Shortlisted for James Tait Black Memorial Prize (Biography) 2002.
• Shortlisted for Whitbread Book Awards: Biography Category 2002.
• Winner of George Orwell Prize 2002.
• Winner of Orwell Prize 2002.

Overview

The first full biography of Anthony Blunt by a brilliant new biographer.Anthony Blunt, aesthete, communist, homosexual, M15 agent and Soviet mole, was Surveyor of the King's Pictures and Director of the Courtauld Institute. Betrayed in 1963, he voted for Margaret Thatcher in 1979. Later that year, she was to expose his treachery and strip him of his knighthood. While the other Cambridge spies (Philby, Burgess and Maclean) subordinated their lives and careers to espionage, Blunt had a separate passionate existence. His reputation as an art historian was second to none: he made an enormous contribution to the establishment of art history as an academic discipline; his volumes on Poussin, French and Italian art and old master drawings are still in print and some are still set texts. At the Courtauld he trained a whole generation of world-class academics and curators. A human paradox, Blunt was a highly-regarded member of the British intelligentsia but his life as such and as a member of the British homosexual subculture of the 30s, 40s and 50s has hardly been explored. Miranda Carter's brilliantly insightful biography shows how his life vividly illustrates certain key themes and moments of the 20th century: intellectual, political, sexual and social. Blunt led two totally discrete lives, he was a set of permanent contradictions and illustrates, perhaps better than anyone, that there is no one key to any human being's identity: we are all a series of conflicting selves.

Full Product Details

9780330367660

Table of Contents

Reviews

An incredible feat of unmasking and revelation; the result is a meticulous, judicious, and ultimately moving account of Blunt's life....A profound study. -- Newsday [A] sympathetic, expertly paced and altogether enthralling biography...Astonishingly assured and accomplished. I haven't enjoyed a biography so much since Judith Thurman's Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette. -- The Washington Post Book World Shrewd...well and sympathetically told. -- The New York Review of Books [An] excellent case study...Blunt's own evolution [as a spy]...is almost a caricature of the genre, and it is Carter's achievement in Anthony Blunt: His Lives to have promoted it above the commonplace. -- The New York Times Book Review [An] insightful new biography. -- The Seattle Times

Astonishingly good * Daily Telegraph * Highly impressive... sensitive and compelling... Miranda Carter has written a richly informative biography which, in the end, does not fall into the trap of tout comprendre, c'est tout pardonner - not only because she is not seeking to pardon him, but also because there is something here that is still quite impossible to comprehend * Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph * A compelling biography... Miranda Carter's skill at scouring the different compartments of Blunt's life is deeply impressive * Julian Barnes, New Yorker *

This fact-packed book is a biography of Anthony Blunt, art historian, author and spy. It has already been awarded the Orwell Prize and The Royal Society of Literature Prize, both in 2001. Blunt was the 'Fourth Man' of the Cambridge spy ring; he confessed to his British Intelligence employers in 1964 and was granted immunity from prosecution, but his identity was revealed in 1979, and he was subsequently stripped of his public roles. The 'Lives' of the title are the different parts of Blunt's life, reflected in the chapters of the book from 'Son' through to 'Traitor', and these also echo Blunt's career, and his way of keeping the different lives he lived separate from each other. The initial question for many readers is why he became a spy. This book cannot really answer that question, but it does put Blunt's life and occupations into a historical perspective, so that we can see how the Communist party became so popular with Blunt and his associates in the 1930s, and how the overthrow of fascism was perceived as more important than national allegiance. In fact, looking at his life chronologically, it seems less surprising that a Marxist academic became a spy, than that he later came to hold office in the Royal household. The book does go some way towards showing how someone who was a privileged member of English cultural circles - surveyor of the Royal Collection, Director of the Courtauld Institute - was also anti-establishment to the point of actually acting on his beliefs and passing information to the Soviets. There is a huge amount of material in this book, carefully assembled by Miranda Carter, and if you lose the thread of the story, or forget where a name has cropped up before, there is a comprehensive index. It is frustrating at first that this biography does not give a clear picture of Blunt's personality. Especially in the early chapters, there are so many facts and reported events that they are almost a barrier between the reader and Blunt, although the excellent photographs included go some way to bringing him and his associates to life. The more lively passages are where Carter is describing someone other than Blunt: for example, Auden, or Guy Burgess. This may be a result of Blunt's secretive and separate personalities, or because Carter is so non-judgemental about him, for this book is far more a factual account of the life of Anthony Blunt than a sensationalisation or criticism of his actions. For this it should be commended. (Kirkus UK)

An incredible feat of unmasking and revelation; the result is a meticulous, judicious, and ultimately moving account of Blunt's life....A profound study. -- Newsday [A] sympathetic, expertly paced and altogether enthralling biography...Astonishingly assured and accomplished. I haven't enjoyed a biography so much since Judith Thurman's Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette. -- The Washington Post Book World Shrewd...well and sympathetically told. -- The New York Review of Books [An] excellent case study...Blunt's own evolution [as a spy]...is almost a caricature of the genre, and it is Carter's achievement in Anthony Blunt: His Lives to have promoted it above the commonplace. -- The New York Times Book Review [An] insightful new biography. -- The Seattle Times

An incredible feat of unmasking and revelation; the result is a meticulous, judicious, and ultimately moving account of Blunt's life....A profound study. -- Newsday <br> [A] sympathetic, expertly paced and altogether enthralling biography...Astonishingly assured and accomplished. I haven't enjoyed a biography so much since Judith Thurman's Secrets of the Flesh: A Life of Colette. -- The Washington Post Book World <br> Shrewd...well and sympathetically told. -- The New York Review of Books <br> [An] excellent case study...Blunt's own evolution [as a spy]...is almost a caricature of the genre, and it is Carter's achievement in Anthony Blunt: His Lives to have promoted it above the commonplace. -- The New York Times Book Review <br> [An] insightful new biography. -- The Seattle Times<br>

Author Information

Miranda Carter was educated at St Paul's Girls' School and Exeter College, Oxford. She worked as a publisher and journalist before beginning research on her biography of Anthony Blunt in 1994. She lives in London with her husband and son. This is her first book.

Tab Content 6

Countries Available