Too Close To The Sun
  • Published: 1 May 2007
  • ISBN: 9780099450276
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $32.99
Categories:

Too Close To The Sun

The Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton

Formats & editions
EBook
1 Jul 2010
Paperback
1 May 2007
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A brilliant new biography by the acclaimed author of Cherry and Terra Incognita.

Conservationist, scholar, soldier, white hunter and fabled lover - Denys Finch Hatton was an aristocrat of leonine nonchalance. After a dazzling career at Eton and Oxford, he sailed in 1910 for British East Africa - still then the land of the pioneer. Sara Wheeler reveals the truth behind his love affairs with the glamorous aviatrix Beryl Markham, and - famously - with Karen Blixen, a romance immortalised in her memoir Out of Africa.

'No one who ever met him', his Times obituary concluded, 'whether man or woman, old or young, white or black, failed to come under his spell'.
  • Published: 1 May 2007
  • ISBN: 9780099450276
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 304
  • RRP: $32.99
Categories:

About the author

Sara Wheeler

Sara Wheeler’s books include the international bestseller Terra Incognita: Travels in Antarctica, of which the Telegraph reviewer wrote, ‘I do not think there will ever be a better book on the Antarctic.’ The Magnetic North: Notes from the Arctic Circle, was chosen as Book of the Year by Will Self, Michael Palin, A. N. Wilson and others. She has published two biographies of travellers: Cherry: A Life of Apsley Cherry-Garrard, and Too Close to the Sun: The Life and Times of Denys Finch Hatton, and was immensely relieved to write about women at last in O My America!. She lives in London.

Also by Sara Wheeler

Mud and Stars
O My America!
Access All Areas
The Magnetic North
Cherry
Terra Incognita
See all

Praise for Too Close To The Sun

A good story... a fitting memorial

Observer

A fascinating story of a man trying to outrun the social upheavals of the twentieth century

Herald

Wheeler has made excellent use of the sources at hand... Moreover, Wheeler writes well, and has a gift - shared by only very few - for pinning down the smells and atmosphere of the African landscape

Literary Review

She dazzles the reader with an evocation of time and place.. her description of the east Africa Campaign is detailed and enthralling

Keith Dovkants, Scotsman

She writes beautifully, with a vivid turn of phrase, a sound grasp of history and an impish humour

Andrew Lycett, Sunday Times

A richly, indeed sensually atmospheric book... Wheeler writes in headily evocative style

Sunday Telegraph

An engrossing book

Hilary Spurling, Daily Telegraph

There is a wealth of engaging anecdote... A vividly enjoyable biography

Times Literary Supplement

The fruit of prodigious research... There will be no better life of this legendary Englishman

Daily Mail
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