Lyndall Gordon

writer

The first of her biographies, *Eliot's Early Years* (1977), began as a student thesis. The British Academy awarded it the Rose Mary Crawshay prize. A sequel, *Eliot's New Life*, was published at the time of the poet's centenary (1988). The two books were rewritten as one, *T.S.Eliot: An Imperfect Life* (1999), with new material collected over twenty years. A memoir of three women who died young, *Shared Lives* (1992), is about women's friendship going back to schooldays in the Cape Town of the fifties. The last book was *Vindication: A Life of Mary Wollstonecraft* (2005). Lyndall is now approaching Emily Dickinson by way of the Dickinson feud. The feud exploded over adultery, but came to focus on the poet. Rival ca Lyndall is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and member of PEN. She is married to Professor of Cellular Pathology, Siamon Gordon; they live in Oxford and have two grown-up daughters.