William Empson (1906-1984) was the foremost English literary critic of the twentieth century. He was a man of huge energy and curiosity, and a genuine eccentric who remained imperturbable in the face of all the extraordinary circumstances in which he found himself. The discovery of contraceptives in his possession by a bedmaker at Cambridge University led to his being robbed of a promised Fellowship. Yet Seven Types of Ambiguity (1930), drafted while he was still an undergraduate, promptly brought him world-wide fame. Empson invented modern literary criticism in English. He acted too as a cultural fifth-columnist, challenging received doctrine in life and literature. "It is a very good thing for a poet...to be saying something which is considered very shocking at the time," he maintained. "To become morally independent of one's formative society...is the grandest theme of all literature, because it is the only means of moral progress." His public life took him through many of the major political events of the modern world--the rise of imperialism in Japan, the Sino-Japanese war in China, wartime propaganda for the BBC, and the Chinese civil war and Communist takeover of Peking in 1949. His friends and critical sparring partners included I. A. Richards, Kathleen Raine, J. B. S. Haldane, Humphrey Jennings, George Orwell, Robert Lowell, Dylan Thomas, Stephen Spender, Helen Gardner, and T. S. Eliot. "It is of great importance now that writers should try to keep a certain world-mindedness," he insisted. "Without the literatures you cannot have a sense of history, and history is like the balancing-pole of the tightrope-walker...; and nowadays we very much need the longer balancing-pole of not national but world history." His passionate world-mindedness, and his humanism, combativeness, and wit, are fully in evidence in this, the first of two volumes exploring his remarkable life and work. "John Haffenden's labors have been on a heroic scale, even by the standards of devoted biographers. These volumes are exceptionally perceptive and illuminating about Empson's writing and thinkingThis remarkable biography now enables us to reconstruct the core experience of being Empson."-Stefan Collini, The Nation "John Haffenden's biography of the greatest English literary critic of the 20th century provides the capstone to more than two decades of steady, patient labor. It follows upon several volumes in which this industrious scholar not only gathered Empson's uncollected writings (e.g., essays in Argufying , imaginative work in The Royal Beasts ) but also brought out a sumptuously annotated edition of his complete poems. All serious students of literature must feel themselves in Haffenden's debt.... The writing is clear, the documentation impeccable and the knowledge of Empsoniana beyond question.... [A] comprehensive, irreplaceable biography."--Michael Dirda, Washington Post Book World "John Haffenden's superb 'William Empson: Among the Mandarins,' the first of a two-volume biography of Britain's most brilliant and influential literary critic, captures the multiple angles of an unusually complex man.... Empson's development into one of the most charismatic poets of the 1930s is a subject about which Haffenden writes with immense shrewdness and warmth.... A work of scholarship and passion, Haffenden's 'Among the Mandarins' is a fine book that should restore Empson to the pedestal from which he had begun to slide. It will, above all, bring readers back to one of our most invigorating and rewarding poets and critics."--Miranda Seymour, Los Angeles Times "Another great English pioneer was the literary critic William Empson, the subject of a magnificent biography this year by John Haffenden.... This grippingly readable volume charts Empson's rake's progress from Yorkshire squirearchy to bohemian Fitzrovia to dedicated teacher in China and Japan."--Terry Eagleton, New Statesman (Books of the Year) "[Haffenden's] majestic biography...must be counted, so far, as one of the finest biographies of an English literary figure.... Haffenden is an exceptionally scholarly and diligent guide; the book rests on prodigious feats of labour.... Haffenden's marvellous book is full of shrewd readings, suggestive details, and comic facts.... The second volume of this fine work, which will continue Empson's life from 1940 to 1984, now has a formidable elder sibling to emulate."--James Wood, The Guardian "The first installment of the biography is spirited and humane, with a fine sense of both Empson's personal quirks and the social settings within which he lived and worked.... [Haffenden's] portrait so far is notable for its sympathy and scholarly assiduity."--John Gross, New York Review of Books "[A] magnificent and surprisingly gripping book, intelligently written, with a background of thorough research, well-illustrated and well-indexed."-- The Sunday Telegraph "A wonderful book... Haffenden's research is exhilaratingly d