The author records his findings on the arrest and murder of the Granadine poet at the onset of the Spanish Civil War

The Assassination of Federico Garcia Lorca

History

GIBSON, IAN

Americas

Penguin??Books

Henry Spencer Ashbee (1834–1900) was a prosperous and respectable Victorian gentleman, a family man who counted among his many friends the celebrated adventurer Sir Richard Francis Burton. But he was a gentleman with a secret—one so delicious that he rented a separate apartment to contain it. Within the well-appointed chambers of Gray's Inn, Ashbee concealed an astonishingly vast collection of erotica and pornography, thousands of volumes strong. Ian Gibson, the acclaimed biographer of Lorca and Dalí, now turns his attention to the hitherto little-known Ashbee, a man who happily supported his wife and four children but spent his spare time meticulously cataloguing such risqué titles as Miss Bellasis Birched for Thieving and The Marchioness's Amorous Pastimes. And with exclusive access to Ashbee's diaries and his family's archives, Gibson has uncovered evidence that Ashbee may himself have been the author of the notorious My Secret Life —the "true" autobiography of an unnamed Victorian gentleman and his sexual adventures. With his celebrated touch for evoking both his subject and his subject's era, Gibson has created a telling and provocative portrait of a fascinating character and the no less intriguing age that made him possible.

The Erotomaniac: The Secret Life of Henry Spencer Ashbee

Biographies & Memoirs

Historical

Da Capo Press

The most thorough and ambitious biography of Salvador Dalí ever written, a remarkable evocation of the outlandish personality, paranoia, and sexual torment lurking behind the nightmarish images that shook the world. Drawing on extensive original research and recently discovered sources, Ian Gibson presents a daringly original portrait of one of this century's most celebrated―and infamous―artists. He provides a full narrative of Dalí's life as artist and as uninhibited exhibitionist, from his wild and troubled youth through his often rollickingly funny adventures in Paris, New York, and Hollywood to his poignant last years. Here is Dalí fully revealed through his voluminous correspondence; his novel, poems, and essays; and interviews with some of those closest to him. The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí reexamines the roles of the two most important individuals in the artist's life: the Spanish playwright and author Federico García Lorca and the enigmatic, libidinous Gala, the Russian émigré whose marriage Dalí broke up and with whom he subsequently lived in unconsummated bliss and terror. This is a truly incandescent life of the surrealist artist who caught the imagination of the twentieth century.

The Shameful Life of Salvador Dalí

Arts & Literature

W.W.Norton&Company

Gibson, Ian, Federico Garcia Lorca: A Life

FEDERICO GARCIA LORCA

Pantheon

View our feature on Ian Gibson's Stuff of LegendsA true legend rescues maidens...pillages temples...and slaughters evil hordes... But what does he do when all the fun is over? 
 When an annoyingly eager young man by the name of Eliott, his Elvish guardian, and a bard-for-hire magically drop into the life of former hero Jordan the Red, the aged warrior wants nothing to do with them. He's had enough of battling the world. But Eliott wants an adventure with the legendary, sword-swinging soldier of fortune-and this hero is about to be forced out of retirement.

Stuff of Legends

Science Fiction & Fantasy

Fantasy

At dawn on the 19th of August 1936 Spaniards murdered the man who most profoundly embodied the poetic spirit of their country. Federico Garcia Lorca was the victim of the passions that arose in Spain as the Church, the military and the bourgeoisie embarked on their reckless and brutal repression of "undesirables". For Lorca was not a political man; he embraced Spain - from its struggling leftist movement to its most conservative traditions - with a love that transcended politics. His "crime" was his antipathy to pomposity, conformity and intolerance. For years the Spanish government suppressed the truth about Lorca's death. In this recreation of the assassination, Ian Gibson redresses the wrong. Based on information only recently made available, this is an illumination not only of the death of a great poet, but of the atmosphere of Civil War Spain that allowed it to happen.

The assassination of Federico García Lorca

W.H.Allen

This is the first book to explore in depth the development of Dali's early work up to about 1930 - work that led to his emergence as one of the greatest and most popular Surrealist painters. It shows how deeply his later images, obsessions, and attitudes were rooted in his youthful experiences in Catalonia and Spain, and makes a major contribution to the study of this period of Spanish art. Published to accompany an international exhibition of Dali's work to be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, London's Hayward Gallery and the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, the book contains innovative essays by some of the best-known writers on Dali, Surrealism and contemporary cultural life in Spain, including Dawn Ades, Ian Gibson and Rafael Santos Torroella. Dali's upbringing in Figueres and Cadaques, his student years in Madrid, his relationship with the poet Federico Garcia Lorca, his collaboration with the filmmaker Bunuel, the critical reception of his work, and his ambivalent connection to the French Surrealists before 1930 are all discussed, illuminating in an unprecedented way the imagery of his paintings. This highly original reassessment of Dali's artistic complexity and importance as an innovator contains extensive, previously unpublished documentary material and has been designed to recreate the distinctive look of publications of the period. It includes an extended selection of his texts in translation, an illustrated chronology, many drawings and color plates of the most significant paintings of the period.

Salvador Dali: The Early Years

Thames&Hudson

Known primarily as a poet and dramatist, Spanish writer Federico Garcia Lorca published four books before his early death in the Spanish Civil War. This biography gives an account of his family, his homosexuality and his mysterious death, as well as tracing his literary development.

Federico Garcia Lorca: A Life

Ian Gibson

Federico Garcia Lorca was born near Granada, Spain in 1899. Known foremost as a poet and dramatist, he wrote "Romancero Gitano" (1928), "Blood Wedding" (1933), "Yerma" (1935) and "The House of Bernalda Alba" (1936) before he was murdered by Franco's supporters in the first months of the Spanish Civil War, aged 37. This biography aims to give a thorough account of Lorca's literary development and traces his background, dealing with his family, his homosexuality and the mysterious circumstances of his death. The book will be of interest to schools and colleges which teach Spanish and to anyone interested in Spanish literature.

Federico García Lorca: A life

Faber and Faber

Lorca's Granada: A Practical Guide

Literature & Fiction

Poetry

Faber&Faber

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