William Empson Volume II

Following the acclaimed first volume, Among the Mandarins , this is the second and concluding volume of the authorized biography of William Empson, one of the foremost poets and literary critics of the twentieth century.Against the Christians begins during the Second World War and follows Empson''s turbulent years of writing wartime propaganda for the BBC. As Chinese Editor, he organised broadcasts to China and propaganda programmes for the Home Service, during which time his friends and colleagues included the prickly George Orwell. The effectiveness of Empson''s work for the BBC provoked the Nazi propagandist Hans Fritzsche to call him a ''curly-headed Jew'' -- a charge which gave him enormous satisfaction.In 1947 he returned to China, where he was caught up in the Communist siege of the Peking and witnessed Mao Tse-tung''s triumphant entry. ''I was there for the honeymoon between the universities and the communists; we were being kept up to the mark rather firmly.'' He saw ''the dra