Best Biographer of the 90s Gets No Respect But Is in Good Company

CONTACT: David Kaplan

PHONE: (713)
831-4791

E-MAIL: dkaplan@rice.edu

BEST BIOGRAPHER OF THE ’90S GETS NO RESPECT BUT IS IN
GOOD COMPANY

With the exception of being named the
best biographer of the decade, Bob Patten can get no respect.

Oxford University Press had originally commissioned his book–a
biography of 19th century British illustrator George Cruikshank–but rejected it
after he turned in a manuscript they considered to be too long: It was several
thousand pages.

After writing to about 20 publishing houses, Patten, a Rice
University professor of humanities, finally found a company that would print
it.

Thirty years in the making, his two-volume, 1,100 page work, “George Cruikshank’s Life, Times, and Art” (Rutgers University Press) received
some very good reviews but relatively little attention. Like many first-rate
books written by academics, it seemed destined to quickly fade into obscurity.
Originally selling for $130, the book was recently remaindered by the publisher
at $7 per volume.

But on April 23, World Book Day, an amazing thing happened. The
Guardian, one of Britain’s most
respected newspapers, named “George Cruikshank’s Life, Times, and Art” the best
biography of the decade in a special book section titled “Stars of the
Nineties.”

Patten was in good company. One of the three runners-up for
best biography, Peter Ackroyd, had received a $1 million advance for his
biography of Charles Dickens. Another runner-up for best biography, Andrew
Motion, would weeks later be named Poet Laureate of Great Britain. Salman
Rushdie won for best novel.

The Guardian described Patten’s “monumental” book as a “triumph of the biographer’s
art–learned but lively, obsessed but always objective, and above all managing
to convey the sheer raciness of its subject’s long life.”

Patten’s was the only honored book to be published by a
non-British publisher.

Cruikshank, who illustrated Dicken’s “Oliver Twist” and
hundreds of other books, produced imagery that defined his time, says Patten who
believes Cruikshank has never been fully recognized for his role in shaping the
representation of Regency and early Victorian society.

Patten says it was “scary” working on the book because he was
writing about an illustrator while having no training in the visual arts. To
research the book, he sought materials from every research university in North
America and England, and says it was very difficult to index all that kept
pouring in. He reviewed 8,500 letters and read a vast number of books in which
Cruikshank’s 12,000 drawings appeared.

Also exploring the artist’s personal life, the book reveals
that beginning at age 60, Cruikshank would father 10 children by his mistress
Adelaide Attree.

Asked if he knew from the outset that it would take 30 years to
write his book, Patten says, “I never think anything is going to take very
long.”

For an interview with Bob Patten or more information, please
call David Kaplan or e-mail at dkaplan@rice.edu.

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