Review of Christopher Brennan: A Critical Biography by Axel Clark

Abstract

Axel Clark has produced an impressively thorough work of scholarship in this first full length biography of Christopher Brennan. sifting judiciously through the mass of colourful reminiscence, anecdote and hearsay that has accumulated around his life, and drawing constructively on much of the new material which recent research has brought to light. His own contribution to this work of discovery—in the records of the institutions (schools, universities, libraries) with which Brennan was associated, in correspondence and mss collections, and in conversation with individuals who knew or knew of Brennan is considerable, especially where knowledge has been sketchy or inaccurate. There must now be very few untapped sources of significant information about Brennan's life, although there is still one important gap which is likely to remain subject to speculation (as it is in this biography): Brennan's courtship of Elizabeth Worth, and their early marital and domestic life.