The Strings are False

An autobiography written in the 1940s but set aside, and published for the first time after MacNeice's death in 1965. 'This incomplete account of himself is masterly, and the best thing Louis MacNeice ever wrote in prose. In this book he talks about himself freely, most intelligently, incisively, and without self-pity . . . MacNeice's evaluation of himself at Marlborough, Oxford and Birmingham, and in the thirties, exhibits more luminously than any document so far published the effect of that time and its diversely pulling forces within one sensual and acute and honest makar in the upper middle classes.' -- Geoffrey Grigson