Gavin Maxwell
A Life
Published on 4. May 2017
626 pages
978-1-78060-097-0 (ISBN)
Description
Gavin Maxwell was a romantic, self-destructive, aristocratic adventurer who worked as secret agent, shark fisherman, racing driver, poet and travel writer. His books on Iraq, Sicily and Morocco were acclaimed, but his fame as a writer rested on his bestselling story of the otters he raised and lived with in a remote cottage on the west coast of Scotland, Ring of Bright Water. Maxwell's private life was every bit as turbulent. His essential homosexuality was masked by the love of a number of women, for whom he was a serially unsatisfactory partner. This authorized biography is a magnificent evocation of the man, his time and the animals and places that formed such an important part of it. Never was the simple life of a nature-loving conservationist pursued by so complicated a character.
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03/2017
Eland Publishing Ltd
€35.20
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Content
- Intro
- Title Page
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- Contents
- Plates
- Map: Sandaig
- Preface
- Prologue: Encounter with a Guru
- PART I: THE QUEST FOR AVALON
- 1: The house on the moor
- 2: Mowgli with a gun
- 3: Breakdown
- 4: The Celtic fringe
- 5: To the Low Arctic
- 6: A call to small arms
- 7: Harpoon
- 8: 'Muldoan!'
- 9: An artist's life
- 10: The man of light
- 11: The house by the sea
- 12: Writing man
- 13: The Sicilians
- 14: Into the great marshes
- 15: Mijbil in Basra
- 16: Mijbil in London
- PART II: AVALON FOUND
- 17: The bay of alders
- 18: The death of Mij
- 19: Writer at work
- 20: The ring and the book
- 21: To the High Atlas
- 22: Avalon besieged
- 23: Ring of Bright Water
- 24: The Haywire Winter
- PART III: AVALON LOST
- 25: End of the idyll
- 26: The habitat of marriage
- 27: Break-up
- 28: Finale
- 29: A chapter of accidents
- 30: A pattern of islands
- 31: On the rocks
- 32: Bitter spring
- 33: The curse
- 34: The rearguard action
- 35: Revived fortunes
- 36: Fire and ice
- 37: The White Island
- 38: Opting out
- 39: A bright bitter sea
- 40: No coming back
- 41: The tunnel
- Epilogue
- Acknowledgements
- Bibliography
- Source Notes
- Plates
- About the Author
- Copyright
