'An excellent book ... sharp and sympathetic' - Sunday Times

'Why doesn't Matthew Arnold enjoy a higher reputation today? He wrote some of the most beautiful poetry of the Victorian period ... yet he distrusted his own poetic genius and effectively stifled it after its early blossoming, devoting his maturity instead to writing worthy but unexciting prose criticism. The reasons why he did this, and the extraordinary tension in the poetry he did write between outbursts of passion and fierce repression, are excellently handled in Ian Hamilton's critical biography.' - Adam Roberts

As a youth, Matthew Arnold was an impassioned lyric poet, deeply at odds with his times. In his later years, he turned himself to more "purposeful" prose composition and became a social prophet and literary critic.

This biography addresses some of the mysteries surrounding Arnold's life, and attempts to animate certain key moments, or turning points, in Arnold's passage from the poetic life to the prose of his later years.