In 1951, when he was twenty, the novelist, screen-writer and homme-de-lettres-to-be Frederic Raphael bought a spiral-bound notebook from Joseph Gibert in the Boulevard St Michel and started keeping a curious kind of writer's journal. His purpose was 'to catch ideas and incidents on the wing' and 'to train myself to notice things as they were'. He continues this practice today, though the word 'things' has come to embrace more or less everything that matters in the writer's world. These not...

Against the Stream is the latest volume of Frederic Raphael's acclaimed memoirs Personal Terms, an unrivalled parade of the author's eventful and provocative life, opinions and times drawn from his living and breathing cahiers and journals. "Shrewd, funny, gossipy and elegantly written," as Jeremy Lewis said in the Literary Review, these writings are as unguarded, sardonic and tactless as they are candid. This seventh volume relives Margaret Thatcher's first years in office. Raphael's wide...

A writer's wry observations about the glamorous worlds of Hollywood and literary London during the second half of the 1970s are offered in this autobiography. Though Frederic Raphael is only incidentally concerned with the rich and famous and has little interest in names and gossip, he notices and comments on the discrepancies between public and private faces to convey the texture of life around him. His notebooks, never originally intended for publication but contained in this compilation...

Spanning the first five years of the 1970s, this installment of Frederic Raphael's view of his own life is at once intimate and detached, a detachment made palpable by months spent in the French farmhouse he purchased at the end of the booming 1960s. Although seemingly poised to direct and write many more films, the slump of the 1970s instead leaves the writer free to concentrate on fiction again. Lesser-known personalities whose unguarded stories and characters provide fodder for inspirat...

Mixing observations about friends and family with short sketches and literary gossip, this third installment of the author's notebooks updates an intriguing personal and cultural record. Starting where Rough Copy: Personal Terms II left off, the story of one contemporary writer's life is resumed in anecdotes, aphorisms, journal entries, reviews, and vignettes of people and places.

Witty and stylish, these extracts from Frederic Raphael's journal chronicle the life and reflections of the screenwriter. Of special interest to film enthusiasts, this candid memoir includes encounters with David Garnett and Rebecca West—and their vivid recollections of H. G. Wells, Lytton Strachey, D. H. Lawrence, and London's Bloomsbury—in addition to accounts of working with Diana Dors and almost working with Diane Keaton. Offering a behind-the-scenes look into the world of moviemaking,...

Compulsively readable, wise, and mischievous by turns, this sixth volume from the collection of Frederic Raphael's personal journals chronicles his eventful life in the seemingly glamorous worlds of 1980s Hollywood and literary London. Included are his encounters with Mary Whitehouse and Meryl Streep, vital memories of Dirk Bogarde, and warm reflections on Peter Sellers. Postwar British values and Byron's sex life are subjected to scrutiny; and there are acute portraits of Robert Redford, ...

Drama Classics: The World's Great Plays at a Great Little PriceAt the whim of Dionysos, a son is torn to pieces by his own mother during the famous women-only Bacchanalian ritual. The story of revenge by the half-man half-god on Pentheus, King of Thebes, and all his people.This version of Euripides' Bacchae is translated and introduced by Kenneth McLeish and Frederic Raphael.

Against the Stream is the latest volume of Frederic Raphael's acclaimed memoirs Personal Terms, an unrivalled parade of the author's eventful and provocative life, opinions and times drawn from his living and breathing cahiers and journals. 'Shrewd, funny, gossipy and elegantly written,' as Jeremy Lewis said in the Literary Review, these writings are as unguarded, sardonic and tactless as they are candid. This seventh volume relives Margaret Thatcher's f...

In the twelfth century, Pope Clement III declared: 'The Pope is resolved to be the lord and master of the world's game.' Yet history has proven to be much more complex.In this epic narrative, Frederic Raphael explores the most significant moments, ideas and figures that have shaped the world's stage. He takes us on a journey through history: from the reigns of Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great, to Plato and Socrates and the origins of philosophy, the turning point of World War ...

Victor England, the great film director, returns to Hollywood to finalise arrangements for his next production. Everything seems propitious: he has a firm contract with a studio that owes him a substantial debt of gratitude and whose top executives are top friends of his. Why, then, is he left to languish in the grand hotel owned by Verdugo, which in Spanish means executioner? What is the relationship between Victor, who can write equally well with left hand or right, and Dr Jekyll and Mr ...

First published in 1965, this is a tale of the face that has launched a thousand billboards. Diana Scott is "The Happiness Girl" in ads plastered all over the country, and she's hunting happiness in more ways than she's care to confess.She's the darling of the rich and powerful: of Prince Cesare della Romita...of TV writer and interviewer Robert Gold...of suave business success Miles Brand.She's the life of the Dolce Vita, Paris version - a reckless seeker of self, caught up...