Skip navigation
London Review of Books London Review Bookshop

Articles marked subscriber-only content are available to registered subscribers to the print edition of the London Review of Books. For information about subscribing to the LRB, click here. If you are already a subscriber and you wish to register for online access, click here. Articles marked not in archive are not currently available in the LRB online archive.

Frank Kermode

Frank Kermode’s books include The Sense of an Ending and The Uses of Error.

From the London Review dated 16 November 2006

‘Disgusting’

  • William Empson. Vol. II: Against the Christians by John Haffenden  Buy this book

In 1940 Empson was back in England, having spent much of the previous decade in Japan and China. His arrival in China had coincided with the Japanese invasion and the resulting southward migration of the National Peking University. He went along, rather enjoyed the hardships of the trek, relying on his excellent memory to teach English with little aid from books. In the autumn of 1939 he made his way homeward via the United States. Arriving the following January he settled in his flat in Marchmont Street and considered his future, at least as uncertain at this date as anybody else’s. [ read more . . . ]

Selected bibliography

  • Pleasure and Change: The Aesthetics of Canon by Frank Kermode, edited by Robert Alter (2004)
  • The Age of Shakespeare (2004)
  • Pieces of My Mind: Essays and Criticism 1958-2002 (2003)
  • Pleasing Myself: From ‘Beowulf’ to Philip Roth (2001)
  • Shakespeare's Language (2000)
  • Collected Poetry and Prose by Wallace Stevens, edited by Frank Kermode and Joan Richardson (1997)
  • Not Entitled: A Memoir (1996)
  • The Sense of an Ending: Studies in the Theory of Fiction (1967)
  • The Romantic Image (1957)  Buy this book

Search the web for Frank Kermode: Google · Yahoo! · AltaVista · Wikipedia

In the LRB archive

subscriber-only content The Daughter Who Hated Her · 17 July 2008

subscriber-only content Offered to the Gods · 5 June 2008

  • Culture and Sacrifice: Ritual Death in Literature and Opera by Derek Hughes  Buy this book

subscriber-only content Did It Happen on 9 April? · 20 March 2008

subscriber-only content With Slip and Slapdash · 7 February 2008

  • The Complete Works of W.H. Auden. Vol. III: Prose, 1949-55 edited by Edward Mendelson  Buy this book

subscriber-only content Not Just Yet · 13 December 2007

Nothing for Ever and Ever · 5 July 2007

subscriber-only content Fiction and E.M. Forster · 10 May 2007

Who has the gall? · 8 March 2007

Was it a supernova? · 4 January 2007

‘Disgusting’ · 16 November 2006

  • William Empson. Vol. II: Against the Christians by John Haffenden  Buy this book

subscriber-only content Going Against · 5 October 2006

  • On Late Style: Music and Literature Against the Grain by Edward Said
  • Late Thoughts: Reflections on Artists and Composers at Work edited by Karen Painter and Thomas Crow  Buy this book

‘It’s the way people like us don’t talk’ · 7 September 2006

Flinch Wince Jerk Shirk · 6 April 2006

subscriber-only content Blackening · 5 January 2006

Here she is · 6 October 2005

  • On Beauty by Zadie Smith

subscriber-only content A Hammer in His Hands · 22 September 2005

subscriber-only content Yearning for the ‘Utile’ · 23 June 2005

The Savage Life · 19 May 2005

  • William Empson: Vol. I: Among the Mandarins by John Haffenden  Buy this book

subscriber-only content Outrageous Game · 21 April 2005

subscriber-only content A Very Smart Bedint · 17 March 2005

Our Muddy Vesture · 6 January 2005

subscriber-only content Manufactured Humbug · 16 December 2004

  • John Payne Collier: Scholarship and Forgery in the 19th Century by Arthur Freeman and Janet Ing Freeman  Buy this book

subscriber-only content Why didn’t he commit suicide? · 4 November 2004

  • T.S. Eliot: The Contemporary Reviews by Jewel Spears Brooker  Buy this book

Retripotent · 5 August 2004

subscriber-only content Clutching at Insanity · 4 March 2004

  • Winnicott: Life and Work by Robert Rodman

subscriber-only content The Sacred Cause of Idiom · 22 January 2004

subscriber-only content Hard Labour · 23 October 2003

  • The Poems of Andrew Marvell edited by Nigel Smith

subscriber-only content Closets of Knowledge · 19 June 2003

  • Privacy: Concealing the 18th-Century Self by Patricia Meyer Spacks

subscriber-only content Reticulation · 6 February 2003

  • The Wreck of the 'Abergavenny' by Alethea Hayter

subscriber-only content Snarling · 28 November 2002

  • The Angry Young Men: A Literary Comedy of the 1950s by Humphrey Carpenter

subscriber-only content To Kill All Day · 17 October 2002

  • Koba the Dread: Laughter and the Twenty Million by Martin Amis

subscriber-only content Lager and Pernod · 22 August 2002

  • The Man Who Walks by Alan Warner

subscriber-only content Pillors of Fier · 11 July 2002

  • Nothing like the Sun: reissue by Anthony Burgess

subscriber-only content Reports from the Not Too Distant Canon · 23 May 2002

subscriber-only content In the Spirit of Mayhew · 25 April 2002

  • Family Matters by Rohinton Mistry

subscriber-only content Zounds · 14 January 2002

  • Blasphemy: Impious Speech in the West from the 17th to the 19th Century by Alain Cabantous, translated by Eric Rauth

Point of View · 4 October 2001

  • Atonement by Ian McEwan

subscriber-only content What Naipaul knows · 6 September 2001

  • Half a Life by V.S. Naipaul

subscriber-only content Meaningless Legs · 21 June 2001

  • Gielgud: A Theatrical Life 1904-2000 by Jonathan Croall
  • John G.: The Authorised Biography of John Gielgud by Sheridan Morley
  • John Gielgud: An Actor’s Life by Gyles Brandreth

Nutmegged · 10 May 2001

  • The War against Cliché: Essays and Reviews 1971-2000 by Martin Amis

subscriber-only content The Small Noise Upstairs · 8 March 2001

  • The Body Artist by Don DeLillo

Maximum Assistance from Good Cooking, Good Clothes, Good Drink · 22 February 2001

  • Lectures on Shakespeare by W.H. Auden, edited by Arthur Kirsch

subscriber-only content Playing the Seraphine · 25 January 2001

At Tate Britain: William Blake · 14 December 2000

subscriber-only content Motoring · 30 November 2000

  • Deep Romantic Chasm: Diaries 1979-81 by James Lees-Milne, edited by Michael Bloch
  • A Mingled Measure: Diaries 1953-72 by James Lees-Milne
  • Ancient as the Hills: Diaries 1973-74 by James Lees-Milne

No Tricks · 19 October 2000

  • Call If You Need Me: The Uncollected Fiction and Prose by Raymond Carver

Writing about Shakespeare · 9 December 1999

Complicated Detours · 11 November 1999

First Pitch · 16 April 1998

  • The Selected Letters of Marianne Moore edited by Bonnie Costello and Celeste Goodridge et al

Not currently in the LRB archive

 not available in archive The heart of standing is you cannot fly · 22 June 2000

  • The Complete Poems of William Empson edited by John Haffenden

 not available in archive How did we decide what Christ looked like? · 27 April 2000

  • The Image of Christ edited by Gabriele Finaldi

 not available in archive Funny Water · 20 January 2000

  • Passage to Juneau: A Sea and Its Meanings by Jonathan Rabin

 not available in archive Charging Downhill · 28 October 1999

  • Basil Street Blues: A Family Story by Michael Holroyd

 not available in archive Bonjour Sagesse · 30 September 1999

  • The Last Life by Claire Messud

 not available in archive Out of Sight, out of Mind · 15 July 1999

  • A.J. Ayer: A Life by Ben Rogers

 not available in archive Diary · 27 May 1999

 not available in archive ‘Message from your wife, sir.’ ‘Not now.’ ‘She says: “Have nothing to do with this just man”’ · 15 April 1999

  • Pilate: The Biography of an Invented Man by Ann Wroe

 not available in archive Overflow · 21 January 1999

  • Beck at Bay: A Quasi-Novel by John Updike

 not available in archive Paint Run Amuck · 12 November 1998

  • Jack Yeats by Bruce Arnold

 not available in archive O How Unlike the Father · 15 October 1998

  • The Alternative Trinity: Gnostic Heresy in Marlowe, Milton and Blake by A.D. Nuttall

 not available in archive Enemy of the Enemies of Truth · 19 March 1998

 not available in archive Toe-Lining · 22 January 1998

  • Shakespeare’s Troy: Drama, Politics and the Translation of Empire by Heather James

From the LRB letters page