Orson Welles, Volume 1

A book of titanic achievement

Daily Telegraph

A knock-down, brass-bound, copper-bottomed triumph...tremendous fun to read... It is Simon Callow's triumph that at the end of this book Orson Welles comes before us just as Oscar Wilde did at the end of Richard Ellmann's superb biography

Keith Baxter, Daily Telegraph

Callow is not just that rare phenomenon, an actor who can write. He is a superb biographer. His description of the making of Kane is masterly... This is an extraordinary book with extraordinary insights

Godfrey Hodson, Independent

Simon Callow's brilliant account of the early years is the best Welles book yet

David Hare

Welles might seem a difficult subject for a new biography. The legend is already pretty much written in stone. Callow's achievement is threefold: he embraces his subject with such gallumphing energy that the extraordinary power of his subject is conveyed as if for the first, fascinating time; he attempts a sober reassessment, trying to get an honest measure of someone who seemed larger than life...and he provides a genuinely interesting actor's view of the actor

Nigella Lawson, The Times