John Clare: A Biography

The long-awaited literary biography of the supreme "poets' poet"

John Clare (1793-1864) is the greatest labouring-class poet that England has ever produced. No one has ever written more powerfully of nature, of a rural childhood, and of the alienated and unstable self, but until now he has never been the subject of a comprehensive literary biography.

Here at last is his full story told by the light of his voluminous work: his birth in poverty, his work as an agricultural la…