With this volume, we get three books for the price of one. There is the ghost of the biography Professor Bate originally set out to write, the heavily revised version actually printed, and the subtext of the latter, which is in a constant, unacknowledged dialogue with its subject’s executor. For this volume comes bearing a well-trailed backstory. After Bate had spent four years on research and writing, the Hughes estate suddenly withdrew permission to quote from his work.And worse was to come. Bate’s publisher, Faber, was also Hughes’. Deciding that its first loyalty was to the Hughes estate, it cancelled the contract with his would-be biographer. What a nightmare for the writer. Professor Bate is a distinguished biographer. He is also one of the world’s leading Sh