ABSTRACT
The publication in 2002 of Selina Hastings's long-awaited biography of Rosamond Lehmann resulted in a flurry of attention, not altogether beneficial to Lehmann's literary standing. The principal concern of this highly entertaining and meticulously researched biography is the life rather than the works of its subject. Selina Hastings's Rosamond Lehmann is no hagiography; indeed, one or two of the reviewers thought that she might have gone too far in her merciless depiction of Lehmann's declining years. She does devote several pages to each of Lehmann's novels, but her judgments are, in some instances, hypercritical: Dusty Answer, for example, while 'a novel of extraordinary potency', is 'undoubtedly flawed' in Hastings's estimation. One suspects that most readers of the biography will be convinced admirers of Lehmann, or addicts of literary scandal; Alex Clark said that it would appeal to those who 'appreciate literary gossip of a viciousness that borders on blood sport'.
