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Ghost StoriesOn Writing Biography |
eBook Available
The memoir of a literary biographer in twentieth-century Montreal.
A biographer is, in a sense, the ghostwriter of someone else’s life, trying to keep out of the way but inevitably leaving an imprint and being changed in the enterprise. In her memoir Judith Adamson, a professional biographer, tells the ghost’s side of the story.
Adamson reveals the questions she asked herself as she researched and wrote, as well as the personal challenges she faced in producing a lively sense of the figure she was recreating on the page, drawing an unbreakable connection between the personal and the professional. Crossing paths with literary luminaries of the twentieth century, she went on to collaborate with Graham Greene on Reflections, the last of his books published in his lifetime. She recounts how she was entrusted with the publication of Leonard Woolf and Trekkie Ritchie’s love letters; how she found a way to hunt down Charlotte Haldane, one of the first women on Fleet Street; and how she came to write the biography of Max Reinhardt, the man behind the finest English publishing house of the mid-twentieth century.
A sharply observant and self-effacing narrator, Adamson brings vividly to life an anglophone upbringing in mid-century Montreal, the London literary scene, and the struggles faced by the women intellectuals of her time. Ghost Stories is a tale of good luck and the hard sleuthing of biographical work before the digital age.
Adamson reveals the questions she asked herself as she researched and wrote, as well as the personal challenges she faced in producing a lively sense of the figure she was recreating on the page, drawing an unbreakable connection between the personal and the professional. Crossing paths with literary luminaries of the twentieth century, she went on to collaborate with Graham Greene on Reflections, the last of his books published in his lifetime. She recounts how she was entrusted with the publication of Leonard Woolf and Trekkie Ritchie’s love letters; how she found a way to hunt down Charlotte Haldane, one of the first women on Fleet Street; and how she came to write the biography of Max Reinhardt, the man behind the finest English publishing house of the mid-twentieth century.
A sharply observant and self-effacing narrator, Adamson brings vividly to life an anglophone upbringing in mid-century Montreal, the London literary scene, and the struggles faced by the women intellectuals of her time. Ghost Stories is a tale of good luck and the hard sleuthing of biographical work before the digital age.
Details
Part of the Footprints Series (number 29 in series)
192 Pages, 5.5 x 8.5
ISBN 9780228021032
April 2024
Formats: Paperback, eBook
“This literary memoir brims with insights about teaching, research, and the art and craft of biography. Adamson’s is a passionate, engaged, and delightfully politically incorrect voice.” Elaine Kalman Naves, award-winning author of Journey to Vaja and Shoshanna’s Story
“Through accounts of her relationships with her biographical subjects - largely writers and artists like Graham Greene, Charlotte Haldane, and Trekkie Ritchie Parsons - [Adamson] shows us that the biographer is not merely a stenographer. As is the case with any writer, they transform a story - a collection of events, observations, experiences - into a narrative. Ghost Stories shows how this transformation is mediated by archives, institutions, and the biographer’s own social position.” Montreal Review of Books
"Adamson’s book is as much about her own life as it is about the subjects of her biographies-which is the point. This beautifully written and rendered memoir flows out of a series of stories of Adamson’s life as it intertwines with those of her subjects. The author has a deep understanding of the storied/fictional aspects of biographical and autobiographical accounts of lives and the constant slippage between the two. Adamson’s sharp-eyed and enthralling descriptions of her life and her subjects reveal the biographer’s and memoirist’s craft as two sides of the same coin." QWF Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction jury
“Through accounts of her relationships with her biographical subjects - largely writers and artists like Graham Greene, Charlotte Haldane, and Trekkie Ritchie Parsons - [Adamson] shows us that the biographer is not merely a stenographer. As is the case with any writer, they transform a story - a collection of events, observations, experiences - into a narrative. Ghost Stories shows how this transformation is mediated by archives, institutions, and the biographer’s own social position.” Montreal Review of Books
"Adamson’s book is as much about her own life as it is about the subjects of her biographies-which is the point. This beautifully written and rendered memoir flows out of a series of stories of Adamson’s life as it intertwines with those of her subjects. The author has a deep understanding of the storied/fictional aspects of biographical and autobiographical accounts of lives and the constant slippage between the two. Adamson’s sharp-eyed and enthralling descriptions of her life and her subjects reveal the biographer’s and memoirist’s craft as two sides of the same coin." QWF Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction jury
Judith Adamson has written biographies of Graham Greene, Charlotte Haldane, and Max Reinhardt and edited the love letters of Leonard Woolf and Trekkie Ritchie. A former English teacher at Dawson College, she lives in Montreal.
Prologue • ix
1 Coming of Age • 3
2 Graham Greene: No Tape Recorder • 29
3 The Dawson Years • 49
4 Sigrun Bülow-Hübe: Just Tell the Truth • 65
5 Charlotte Haldane: With and Without Husband JBS • 82
6 Vincent Brome: Book or Thesis? • 96
7 Leonard Woolf and Trekkie Ritchie Parsons: Their Love Letters • 114
8 Max Reinhardt: Gentleman Publisher • 135
9 Pentimento • 154
Acknowledgments • 175
Works Cited • 177
1 Coming of Age • 3
2 Graham Greene: No Tape Recorder • 29
3 The Dawson Years • 49
4 Sigrun Bülow-Hübe: Just Tell the Truth • 65
5 Charlotte Haldane: With and Without Husband JBS • 82
6 Vincent Brome: Book or Thesis? • 96
7 Leonard Woolf and Trekkie Ritchie Parsons: Their Love Letters • 114
8 Max Reinhardt: Gentleman Publisher • 135
9 Pentimento • 154
Acknowledgments • 175
Works Cited • 177
Finalist
The Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction
Quebec Writers' Federation
2024
The Mavis Gallant Prize for Non-Fiction
Quebec Writers' Federation
2024
