This edition celebrates the centenary of Williams's birth. RAYMOND WILLIAMS (1921-1998) was the most influentialsocialist writer and thinker in post-war Britain. Now, for thefirst time, making full use of Williams's private and unpublishedpapers and by placing him in a wide social and culturallandscape, Dai Smith, in this highly original and much praisedbiography, uncovers how Williams's life to 1961 is an explanationof his immense intellectual achievement. "It is Smith's ambition to set out the lonely, almost monastic pathRaymond took through childhood, army and adult educationtowards his deserved eminence. But the biographer's greatestachievement is to find his own discerning route through whatoften seems to be a jungle of contradiction... This is a worthwhilebook and a very good one."- David Hare, The Guardian"It is a remarkable piece of work and will henceforth be essentialto the understanding of the making of Raymond Williams."- Eric Hobsbawm"Becomes at once the authoritative account... Smith has done allthat we can ask the historian as biographer to do."- Stefan Collini, London Review of Books"Carrying an impressive deal of intensive research lightly... theportraiture throughout is graphic, richly detailed and subtlyshaded... in these packed, lucidly written pages..."- Terry Eagleton, New Welsh Review