IN THE BLOOD: A Memoir of My Childhood.

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.[Complete number line 2 4 6 8 10 9 7 5 3 1.] FINE/FINE.No owner inscrptn and no price-clip (£16.99) to dw/dj.Bright, crisp,clean,matt,colour pictorial illustrated dw/dj panels with brown, black and grey lettering to front panel; with negligible shelf-wear or creasing to edges and corners - no nicks or tears present.Top+fore-edges bright and clean; contents bright,tight,clean,solid and sound - pristine - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners,appears unread - apart from my own collation.Bright,crisp,clean,sharp-cornered,publisher's original plain dark green paper-covered boards with bright,crisp,blocked gilt letters to spine/backstrip,a dark green headband,and immaculate plain maroon endpapers.UK,small 8vo HB +dw/dj,1st edn,1-326pp [paginated] includes 22 chapters; plus [unpaginated] half-title+title pages,a dedication,an epigram (William Wordsworth) and contents list/table.
A lyrical and moving memoir of a childhood tragically brought to a halt.
'In the Blood' is Andrew Motion's beautifully written memoir of growing up in post-war England - an unforgettable evocation of family life, school life and country life.It also tells the story of how these worlds are shattered,when his mother suffers a terrible riding accident.
The tragedy shadows the book,feeding its mood of elegy as well as its celebratory vigilance.Writing from a teenage child's point of view, without the benefit of adult hindsight,Motion captures the pathos and puzzlement of childhood with great clarity of expression and freshness of memory.We encounter a strange but beguiling extended family,a profound love of the natural world,a troubled schooling,and a growing passion for books and writing.
By turns funny and elegiac,'In the Blood' is a wonderful picture of a vanishing England,a remarkable insight into a poet's mind, and a deeply moving portrait of the bond between a mother and her son.
Andrew Motion was born in 1952.He was appointed Poet Laureate in 1999,and is Professor of Creative Writing at Royal Holloway College, University of London.His most recent book,'The Invention of Dr Cake (2003) was described as a novella of 'brilliant and almost hallucinatory vividness' (Sunday Telegraph), and as 'an engrossing meditation on life and death and the role of poetry (Irish Times).
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