Prince Charming is the story of Christopher Logue: one of our great poets and literary mavericks, part of a circle that included Kenneth Tynan and Richard Ingrams. It tells, in frank detail and with eloquent relish, of its author's South England childhood and schooldays; his post-war stint in the army, which ended in disgrace and imprisonment; his years in Paris, during which he was involved in publishing Beckett and wrote pornography; his return to England, where he grew serious about politics, was imprisoned for the second time (as a member of the anti-nuclear Committee of 100), offended T. S. Eliot, participated in the new satire movement, promoted the public performance of poetry, and invented the poster poem. These pages give us unofficial glimpses of the likes of Alexander Trocchi, Maurice Girodias, Lindsay Anderson, Nell Dunn, Peter Cook and the charismatic Pauline Boty. There are enough characters among the less well-known - from the author's father to the Portobello Road street-trader 'Minky' Warren - to stock a lively novel.
Christopher Logue (1926-2011) was educated at Prior Park College, Bath, and at Portsmouth Grammar School. He served as a Private in the Black Watch and spent sixteen months in an army prison. His publications include several volumes of poetry and a pornographic novel. The first collection of his reinterpretation of Homer's Iliad, War Music, was shortlisted for the 2002 Griffin Poetry Prize; Cold Calls, the fifth instalment of the War Music series, won the Whitbread Poetry Prize in 2005. The first complete single-volume edition of War Music, including previously unpublished material, was published in 2015.
Title: Prince Charming
Author: Logue, Christopher
ISBN: 9780571203611
Binding:
Publisher: Faber & Faber
Publication Date: 2001-11-05
Number of Pages: 352
Weight: 0.2586 kg
'They don't get much better than this...Logue is a great storyteller.' Gerald Dawe; 'It's assumed nowadays that autobiography will uncover hidden areas of a life, be sexually candid and reveal its author to be vulnerable and self-doubting at heart. Prince Charming meets these requirements but achieves much more...It rescues from the wreckage of various phases and crazes (where is Jazz poetry now?) a man indisputably and agonisingly committed to his art.' Alan Brownjohn, Observer