Philip Callow: 3 books

Only now can we see Paul Cézanne as the invisible genius at the very inception of modern art. Recent exhibitions of his early works reveal an artist very different from the serene landscapist we thought we knew. What was it that made these disturbingly dark and troubled paintings, with their violence...

When Philip Callow’s Common People was first published in 1958, reviewer John Betjeman described it as “a genuine cry from a class usually silent in the literary world” and hailed it as one of the best books of the year. The story of a young working-class man from the Midlands who dreams of...

The life of Russia's greatest dramatist and storyteller examined within the context of the evolution of his art. A fine biography...a very well-written, intelligent account of Chekhov's remarkable literary career and of his private actions. —Atlantic Monthly