Spike Island

‘Spike Island has kept me company these past few days. It is an astonishing book not only for what it contains but also for its synoptic vision and for its wonderful prose style. If 10per cent of the population read it, the place we live in would be much improved’. W.G.Sebald ‘Philip Hoare’s deeply personal foray into the past is a tour-de-force’ Michael Bracewell, Independent on Sunday ‘The story of the Royal Victoria Hospital is a fascinating one, and Mr Hoare’s book extremely valuable’ Anthony Daniels, Sunday Telegraph ‘Hoare develops a gothic theme that marries glamour with morbidity and runs throughout the workHis literary tones - ghostly, haunting, reminiscent of du Maurier - find their echo is Netley’s grim history’ Nicola McAllister, The Observer

Philip Hoare is the author of six works of non-fiction: Serious Pleasures: The Life of Stephen Tennant (1990) and Noel Coward: A Biography (1995), Wilde’s Last Stand: Decadence, Conspiracy, and the First World War (1997), Spike Island: The Memory of a Military Hospital (2000), and England’s Lost Eden: Adventures in a Victorian Utopia (2005). Leviathan or, The Whale (2008), won the 2009 BBC Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction. Most recently, The Sea Inside (2013) was published to great critical acclaim.

An experienced broadcaster, Hoare wrote and presented the BBC Arena film The Hunt for Moby-Dick, and directed three films for BBC’s Whale Night. He is Visiting Fellow at Southampton University, and Leverhulme Artist-in-residence at The Marine Institute, Plymouth University, which awarded him an honourary doctorate in 2011.