Monday's talk by the writer Ann Wroe on her latest literary biography, Being Shelley, was a sell-out. And those purchasing their tickets were more than satisfied: i.e. engrossed and exhilarated!

Speaking as one with a fair working knowledge of Shelley's poetry, but who for reasons of temperament has never been especially drawn, I have to admit to being riveted by Ann's exposition of her book and its extraordinary subject - that passionate mercurial Romantic poet, who for four intense and intensive years had cast such a spell over his biographer.

The product of that spell is a meticulously researched and eloquently presented study - not so much of the poet's life per se, but rather the soul, mind and imagination of the man: in short his being.

Trying to write (or talk!) about anyone's thought and feeling is difficult enough, but to convey a personality as complex, elusive, fluid and rarefied as Shelley's is a near miracle. And somehow Ann Wroe achieved just that. I suppose it is all a matter of scholarship being wedded to ardour. It was exactly the fusion of those two which made the event so appreciated by the audience, whose interesting and searching questions certainly reflected their enjoyment.

Copies of Being Shelley: The Poet's Search For Himself (Hardback pub. Jonathan Cape; Paperback pub. Vintage) can be purchased/ordered from the Three Counties Bookshop who also stock other studies by Ann Wroe, notably her biography of Pontius Pilate, an absorbing work.

Suzette A. Hill