Background
Bayley was born in Lahore, British India, and educated at Eton, where he studied under G. W. Lyttelton, who also taught Aldous Huxley, J. B. S. Haldane, George Orwell and Cyril Connolly.
( A magnum opus and a cause for celebration from one of t...)
A magnum opus and a cause for celebration from one of the world's foremost literary essayists. Beginning his career at Oxford in the 1950s, the ever-incisive John Bayley has been one of the great bulwarks--in the tradition of William Hazlitt and Edmund Wilson--of twentieth-century world literature. His distinctive sensibility has transformed tastes and theories. Here, in The Power of Delight, a volume that has been assembled with the assistance of New Yorker editor Leo Carey, we see at last the full range of Bayley's life and work, divided into eight sections that include 'English Literature,' 'Russian Novels,' and 'American Poetry.' A wide-ranging guide to essential reading, The Power of Delight examines classics, neglected gems and masterpieces of our time--from Jane Austen to Milan Kundera, Leo Tolstoy to John Ashbery, and from Robert Lowell's messy persona to George Orwell's self-canonization.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393344924/?tag=2022091-20
(This 1981 book suggests an insightful approach to Hardy a...)
This 1981 book suggests an insightful approach to Hardy as a poet and novelist. With the novels in particular it concentrates not so much on ideas and attitudes as on the texture of the writing, and on the crucial importance in it between one kind of exposition and another. John Bayley starts by establishing a difference between Hardy the private 'noticer' of things and people, and Hardy the professional author committed to interpreting these observations to his readers. The vital ingredients of eroticism and humour are analysed in detail, as are the unusual ways in which passiveness, 'pessimism', and anthropomorphism function in the poems and novels, and an insightful reading of Tess is put forward. Professor Bayley shows that the rewards of reading Hardy are greater than ever, although they are not necessarily those which the reader expects, or has been taught to look for.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521218144/?tag=2022091-20
(After more than three years of suffering from Alzheimer's...)
After more than three years of suffering from Alzheimer's disease, the novelist and philosopher Iris Murdoch died in January 1999. Early that month she was taken to a home for the terminally ill, and she remained radiant and calm for the last weeks of her life. The last year or so of Iris Murdoch's life provides the framework for IRIS AND THE FRIENDS, but within this structure John Bayley returns repeatedly to memories of his own earlier life, and of more than forty years of marriage to Iris. Alzheimer's is a lonely predicament for the carer, and Bayley describes how he copes with the ordeal of watching his wife become terminally ill by forming a growing dependency on memory as a stand-by, consolation and friend. In the final chapters, Bayley describes his wife's death which was an entirely serene one. He writes of how he is learning to cope with the loss of Iris, and how he is creating a new life for himself. Partly an autobiography, partly the biography of a marriage, IRIS AND THE FRIENDS provides a sensitive and, at times, a gently humourous lesson in the uses of adversity and will enthrall those fans of IRIS who wanted to know more about Bayley himself.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0715629328/?tag=2022091-20
(This digitally reprinted edition of Pushkin: A Comparativ...)
This digitally reprinted edition of Pushkin: A Comparative Commentary has the same content as the original 1971 edition. Professor Bayley, in this first critical assessment in English of the whole range of Pushkin's writing, examines his achievement in relation to Russian literature and the European tradition, analysing Pushkin's language in detail to illustrate how he obtains his literary effects.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0521079543/?tag=2022091-20
(A young female student is kidnapped from an Oxford philos...)
A young female student is kidnapped from an Oxford philosophy class. Is it an experiment in virtual reality or something more sinister? This sequel to Alice exposes the disquieting things that may result from a pursuit of fantasy.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/071562654X/?tag=2022091-20
(During the five years of the terminal illness of Dame Iri...)
During the five years of the terminal illness of Dame Iris Murdoch, her husband John Bayley kept a commonplace book of writings which inspired him, which made him think more profoundly and which gave him courage in his darkest moment. This commonplace book forms the basis for this anthology which Bayley accompanies with his own moving and entertaining commentary.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0826454542/?tag=2022091-20
(Carey, an editor at The New Yorker has selected 69 essays...)
Carey, an editor at The New Yorker has selected 69 essays and articles by Bayley, a pillar of literary criticism on both sides of the Atlantic since the 1950s. They consider English literature, the English poets, Mother Russia, American poetry, out of eastern Europe, aspects of novels, correspondences between writers, and contemporary works. Only n
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393058409/?tag=2022091-20
(John Bayley's account of his long and loving marriage to ...)
John Bayley's account of his long and loving marriage to the great novelist Iris Murdoch takes us on a journey, from their love affair's comically inauspicious beginnings in the Oxford of the early fifties (Bayley courted Iris on account of her unchallenging plain looks and their first date consisted of a revolting dinner followed by a disastrous dance when Iris sprained her ankle) to its slow and painful closure when the onset of Alzheimer's more than forty years later, which should be devastating. Yet as Bayley charts the gradual dissolution of Iris's remarkable intellect side by side with the detail of their gloriously eccentric and profoundly satisfying life together, what emerges is the complex portrait of an enigmatic and brilliant woman and of a marriage of quite extraordinary, unforced happiness, and some remarkable insight into the richly mysterious symbolism of Iris Murdoch's novels. Wry, intelligent, and unexpectedly hilarious, IRIS is an unforgettable inquiry into the nature of love and identity and a uniquely moving articulation of loss.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0349112150/?tag=2022091-20
(In 1998 John Bayley wrote a best-selling, critically accl...)
In 1998 John Bayley wrote a best-selling, critically acclaimed memoir of his wife, the great philosopher and novelist Iris Murdoch, who had been suffering from Alzheimer's disease since 1996. At times unbearably moving, at times poignantly comical, this memoir provides a fitting memorial to Dame Iris. It is an enchanting portrait of a remarkable marriage and an inspiration for anyone whose life is affected by Alzheimer's.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0715643258/?tag=2022091-20
Professor of English Literature
Bayley was born in Lahore, British India, and educated at Eton, where he studied under G. W. Lyttelton, who also taught Aldous Huxley, J. B. S. Haldane, George Orwell and Cyril Connolly.
Eton and New College Oxford.
He was Warton Professor of English at the University of Oxford from 1974 to 1992. After leaving Eton, he went on to take a degree at New College, Oxford. From 1974 to 1992, Bayley was Warton Professor of English at Oxford.
He was also a novelist and wrote literary criticism for several newspapers.
He edited Henry James" The Wings of the Dove and a two-volume selection of James" short stories. In the mid-1990s Murdoch fell ill with Alzheimer"s disease, diagnosed in 1997.
Bayley then wrote the book, which was made into the 2001 film Iris by Richard Eyre. In this film, Bayley was portrayed in his early years by Hugh Bonneville, and in his later years by Jim Broadbent.
After Murdoch"s death Bayley married Audi Villers, a family friend.
He was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1999. John Bayley died on 12 January 2015.
(John Bayley's account of his long and loving marriage to ...)
(During the five years of the terminal illness of Dame Iri...)
(In 1998 John Bayley wrote a best-selling, critically accl...)
(Carey, an editor at The New Yorker has selected 69 essays...)
(After more than three years of suffering from Alzheimer's...)
(This digitally reprinted edition of Pushkin: A Comparativ...)
( A magnum opus and a cause for celebration from one of t...)
(This 1981 book suggests an insightful approach to Hardy a...)
(A young female student is kidnapped from an Oxford philos...)
(Will be shipped from US. Brand new copy.)
Saint Antony’s and Magdalen Colleges Oxford 1951-1955.