V S Pritchett (1900 - 1997) was one of the most subtle, potent and best-loved of modern British writers, an unparalleled story-teller and biographer. This engrossing and lively volume, edited by his son, is a tribute to alifetime of writing. He looks back to his childhood and youth in sxtracts from his autobiographies A CAB AT THE DOOR and MIDNIGHT OIL. His vivid travel writings take us from the Appalachians and Amazonia to Ireland and the south of Spain. He writes with great insight about the lives of the authors he loves: Chekov, Turgenev, Balzac - and his whitty and sensitive critsicism illuminates writersboth classic and contemporary, from Scott, Kipling and George Eliot, to Saul Bellow and Salman Rushdie. Finally the volume contains extracts from his novels and the best of the superb short stories.