PHIL BAKER is a London-based writer who has written books on absinthe, occult novelist Dennis Wheatley, Samuel Beckett, and William Burroughs, with two more books in preparation on London and opium. He also writes for several newspapers, including the Sunday Times and the Times Literary Supplement.
From the foreword: "Phil Baker has established himself as among the
very best contemporary biographers... What Baker
has accomplished here is little short of marvellous."
—Alan Moore, author of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell
"[written with] zest and insight .... Ever determined to break down
the barriers between reality and fantasy, Spare has
finally achieved it--not by elaborate psychic exercises, but
through biography."
—The Times Literary Supplement
"Baker has a fine store of anecdotes... What emerges is a
portrait of a marginal figure forever ahead of the curve: [Spare]'s
cited as the precursor of surrealism, pop art and even
psychoanalysis."
—The Guardian
"Baker is a wonderful writer, careful, intelligent, and dry. He
also knows his London, and the Spare that emerges in his portrayal
is very much an avatar of that unique and ancient town."
—Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis and Nomad Codes
"The time is over-ripe for a proper biography of this curious
figure, and it is a pleasure to report that Phil Baker's study is a
first-rate performance, scrupulously researched, judicious, and
refreshingly sane .... By the end of this admirable book, Spare
comes to seem a strangely attractive figure: talented, stoical,
randy, cantankerous, gentle, and a magnificent English
eccentric."
—The Literary Review
"I cannot recommend Austin Osman Spare too highly. Phil Baker has
done a wonderful job of bringing the complexities and
contradictions of Spare's life to the fore, and in making the
London of Spare's time come to life vividly and richly."
—Phil Hine, author of Condensed Chaos
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