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Ezra Pound
Presents the life and discusses the works of the controversial and influential American poet and critic.
128 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1980
About the author
Peter Ackroyd
195 books1,512 followersPeter Ackroyd CBE is an English novelist and biographer with a particular interest in the history and culture of London.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
Peter Ackroyd's mother worked in the personnel department of an engineering firm, his father having left the family home when Ackroyd was a baby. He was reading newspapers by the age of 5 and, at 9, wrote a play about Guy Fawkes. Reputedly, he first realized he was gay at the age of 7.
Ackroyd was educated at St. Benedict's, Ealing and at Clare College, Cambridge, from which he graduated with a double first in English. In 1972, he was a Mellon Fellow at Yale University in the United States. The result of this fellowship was Ackroyd's Notes for a New Culture, written when he was only 22 and eventually published in 1976. The title, a playful echo of T. S. Eliot's Notes Towards the Definition of Culture (1948), was an early indication of Ackroyd's penchant for creatively exploring and reexamining the works of other London-based writers.
Ackroyd's literary career began with poetry, including such works as London Lickpenny (1973) and The Diversions of Purley (1987). He later moved into fiction and has become an acclaimed author, winning the 1998 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for the biography Thomas More and being shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1987.
Ackroyd worked at The Spectator magazine between 1973 and 1977 and became joint managing editor in 1978. In 1982 he published The Great Fire of London, his first novel. This novel deals with one of Ackroyd's great heroes, Charles Dickens, and is a reworking of Little Dorrit. The novel set the stage for the long sequence of novels Ackroyd has produced since, all of which deal in some way with the complex interaction of time and space, and what Ackroyd calls "the spirit of place". It is also the first in a sequence of novels of London, through which he traces the changing, but curiously consistent nature of the city. Often this theme is explored through the city's artists, and especially its writers.
Ackroyd has always shown a great interest in the city of London, and one of his best known works, London: The Biography, is an extensive and thorough discussion of London through the ages.
His fascination with London literary and artistic figures is also displayed in the sequence of biographies he has produced of Ezra Pound (1980), T. S. Eliot (1984), Charles Dickens (1990), William Blake (1995), Thomas More (1998), Chaucer (2004), William Shakespeare (2005), and J. M. W. Turner. The city itself stands astride all these works, as it does in the fiction.
From 2003 to 2005, Ackroyd wrote a six-book non-fiction series (Voyages Through Time), intended for readers as young as eight. This was his first work for children. The critically acclaimed series is an extensive narrative of key periods in world history.
Early in his career, Ackroyd was nominated a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1984 and, as well as producing fiction, biography and other literary works, is also a regular radio and television broadcaster and book critic.
In the New Year's honours list of 2003, Ackroyd was awarded the CBE.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 6, 2016
For sheer narcissism, child neglect and marital infidelity (of which neither Kipling nor Conrad were ever guilty of as far as is known) the award goes to Ezra Pound.
Let's just say the man was crazy. I mean literally. He spent almost eighteen years in an insane asylum, which I'm sure he found preferable to being charged with treason since he was a follower of Mussollini.
Pound was a part of the American ex-patriot group that traveled through out Europe, meeting in Parisian Cafes with the likes of T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He was great friends with many contemporary artists and writers such as W.B. Yeats, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce and sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska but his anti-social and increasingly pro-fascist ideologies successfully alienated him to most of his friends.
He was a tormented soul and one wonders why his wife, the British painter Dorothy Shakespear (it's spelled without an "e") tolerated it, even when, while living in Italy, he sent their son off to England to be raised by relatives. He never associated with his son and only child from his marriage for the rest of his life but became quite close to the daughter of his mistress, the violinist Olga Rudge who followed everywhere he and Dorothy lived.
For the rest of the review cut and paste the link to my blog post:
http://sharonhenning.blogspot.com/201...
Let's just say the man was crazy. I mean literally. He spent almost eighteen years in an insane asylum, which I'm sure he found preferable to being charged with treason since he was a follower of Mussollini.
Pound was a part of the American ex-patriot group that traveled through out Europe, meeting in Parisian Cafes with the likes of T.S. Eliot, Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald. He was great friends with many contemporary artists and writers such as W.B. Yeats, D.H. Lawrence, James Joyce and sculptor Henri Gaudier-Brzeska but his anti-social and increasingly pro-fascist ideologies successfully alienated him to most of his friends.
He was a tormented soul and one wonders why his wife, the British painter Dorothy Shakespear (it's spelled without an "e") tolerated it, even when, while living in Italy, he sent their son off to England to be raised by relatives. He never associated with his son and only child from his marriage for the rest of his life but became quite close to the daughter of his mistress, the violinist Olga Rudge who followed everywhere he and Dorothy lived.
For the rest of the review cut and paste the link to my blog post:
http://sharonhenning.blogspot.com/201...
August 25, 2025
A surprisingly clear-head and objective look at the life and poetry of Ezra Pound by a biographer and critic who sees a wasted life dedicated to some of the highest art of the twentieth century. Ackroyd is right that Pound's grave error, one that cost him his freedom and nearly his life, lay in confusing and conflating aesthetics with politics. "Pound's central vision, of 'a thousand candles burning as one'" rang true for poetry and served for entry point into fascism. The unity of art cannot and must not become the uniformity of the state. A first-rate introduction to Pound.
January 1, 2022
This is a concise biography of American expatriate poet Ezra Pound by Peter Ackroyd. Ezra Pound and His World shows how Pound sabotaged his own career by becoming a pro-Mussolini Fascist while living in Italy, and making numerous anti-Semitic broadcasts on Italian radio. For this he was imprisoned, tried for treason, and sent to a mental hospital. While I do not subscribe in any way to Pound's political beliefs, I think he was a great poet. Because of his "extracurricular" political activities, he pretty much destroyed the audience for his works.
Pound's poems are difficult, are littered with expressions in foreign languages, and require a good deal more time to understand than the work of most other poets -- but I think it is worth the effort.
I think Ackroyd did a good job sketching the main details of Pound's life and avoided falling into the many possible judgment traps that are possible with a character like Pound.
Pound's poems are difficult, are littered with expressions in foreign languages, and require a good deal more time to understand than the work of most other poets -- but I think it is worth the effort.
I think Ackroyd did a good job sketching the main details of Pound's life and avoided falling into the many possible judgment traps that are possible with a character like Pound.
January 19, 2015
Peter Ackroyd is an idiot.
May 1, 2019
Decent overview, nicely illustrated.
January 3, 2009
The funny thing about this one...I read it when I was a little sprout in High School. I wanted to learn about him and his poetry. Throughout the whole book, the author just kept saying 'the only way to understand Pound...is to READ HIS POETRY'...and I was like, well, that's what I'm reading this thing here to DO! Gah!
A gorgeous piece of literary criticism on "In A Station At The Met"...bringing out the intense preoccupation with syllables and details and moments within the details. Really opened my eyes to a certain type poetics that has stuck with me, in different ways, for years....
July 16, 2020
Ackroyd seems to tackle his life in a wonderfully head on kind of way, celebrating his impact on modernism while not shying away from the more unsavoury areas of his life - from the neglect of his children right through to his political views and actions. It seems to be a fairly succinct biography, and the illustrations do make it quite an enjoyable experience. The brevity of it is a blessing, I think, since a longer biography of this man's life would probably leave you feeling angry or depressed.
I came away with the opinion of Pound as a good poet, a great advocate for art in all its forms, but his life fell short of the work.
I came away with the opinion of Pound as a good poet, a great advocate for art in all its forms, but his life fell short of the work.
February 23, 2013
Great portrait of the author which helps one understand the great contradictions in his life, the extent of his genius and the depth of his mental illness. All this while still providing a pretty good analysis of his major works, such as the Cantos, literary criticism and shorter works of poetry. Very readable account with tons of great photos.
June 7, 2011
A thorough overview of his life and work with lots of fascinating photos, but not much depth in either. Ackroyd did not write this bio with the same enthusiasm he displayed in his biography of Blake.
November 5, 2017
I never heard of Ezra Pound until I read The Novel by James Michener. Interesting but difficult.
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December 30, 2007An interesting topic for biography and good photos aid in another Ackroyd accomplishment. It is well-researched, with a lively and literary style.
February 5, 2009
a journey with the incredible man who wrote "In a Station of the Metro"!
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews