Synopsis: Leslie Poles Hartley (1895-1972) was a prolific British writer best known for his novels The Shrimp and the Anemone, Eustace and Hilda, and The Go-Between. Wright, a former professional librarian, has written the first biography of Hartley. It covers his upper-middle-class childhood, his undemanding service during World War I, his unsuccessful struggle to come to terms with his homosexuality, and his adult life as a writer among the wealthy and titled in Venice and England. The author has produced a scholarly work that is generally well written despite the occasional awkward phrase. It is to Wright's credit that he has not spared the man whom he calls his "boyhood hero" but provides us with a balanced portrait of Hartley as he was: a fine writer and a snobbish social climber who was not above being cruel to animals.