Moab Is My Washpot

The original bestselling autobiography by the comedian, novelist and national treasure, Stephen Fry.__The original bestselling autobiography by comedian, novelist and national treasure Stephen Fry.Few people serve time in prison before studying at Cambridge. You might be surprised to know that Stephen Fry is one of them.Moab is My Washpot, the remarkable story of Stephen Fry's tumultuous early life, is by turns funny, shocking, tender, delicious, sad, lyrical, bruisingly frank and addictively readable.It's the story of a boy sent to a boarding school 200 miles from home at the age of seven, who survives beatings, misery, love, ecstasy, carnal violation, expulsion, imprisonment, criminal conviction, probation and catastrophe to emerge, at eighteen, ready to try and face the world in which he had always felt a stranger.Fry writes with the wit and warmth which have become his hallmark, but with shocking candour too. For anyone seeking to understand one of Britain's greatest cultural treasures, this book is utterly essential reading.

“"A remarkable, perhaps even unique, exercise in autobiography... that aroma of authenticity that is the point of all great autobiographies; of which this, I rather think, is one." ”

One of the most poignant, funny, intelligent, frank and horribly addictive books you're likely to read all year Sunday Telegraph
A remarkable, perhaps even unique, exercise in autobiography ... that aroma of authenticity that is the point of all great autobiographies: of which his, I rather think, is one Evening Standard
Stephen Fry is one of the great originals ... This autobiography of his first twenty years is a pleasure to read, mixing outrageous acts with sensible opinions in bewildering confusion ... That so much outward charm, self-awareness and intellect should exist alongside behaviour that threatened to ruin the lives of innocent victims, noble parents and Fry himself, gives the book a tragic grandeur and lifts it to classic status Financial Times
He writes superbly about his family, about his homosexuality, about the agonies of childhood ... some of his bursts of simile take the breath away ... his most satisfying and appealing book so far Observer
This is one of the most extraordinary and affecting biographies I have read . . . Stephen is . . . painfully honest when trying to grapple with his ever-present demons, and often, as you might expect, very funny Daily Mail
The writing is rhapsodic, intoxicated and very touching Mail on Sunday
[A] wonderful, self-lacerating autobiography Humphrey Carpenter, Sunday Times
He has produced a remarkable autobiography . . . It makes gripping, sometimes unbearably sad, sometimes confusing reading . . . exhilarating, humane, zany, literary Spectator
No one can make you feel quite like Stephen Fry can . . . Funny and tormentedly frank Time Out
Hugely enjoyable . . . compulsively readable . . . Fry is excellent on the details of memory, too, and always able to embellish them with effortless erudition . . . this engaging, engrossing read is as honest a portrait of a young liar as one could hope to read Scotsman
He is bubbly, funny and charming, and he gives his fans plenty of material if they want to speculate on why he is both so gifted and so wayward The Times
The jokes . . . transcend the complexes of the joker, turning the Stephenesque into a national as well as a family treasure Guardian
Not so much an autobiography, more a way of life; discursive, funny, sometimes almost unbelievably sad, opinionated, nostalgic and very infectious Claire Rayner, New Statesman
Fry can be funny about anything Good Book Guide
So charming and so acute that one cannot help forgiving him Daily Express

Stephen Fry is an award-winning comedian, actor, presenter and director. He rose to fame alongside Hugh Laurie in A Bit of Fry and Laurie (which he co-wrote with Laurie) and Jeeves and Wooster, and was unforgettable as General Melchett in Blackadder. He has hosted over 180 episodes of QI, and has narrated all seven of the Harry Potter novels for the audiobook recordings. He is the bestselling author of four novels - The Stars' Tennis Balls, Making History, The Hippopotamus and The Liar - as well as three volumes of autobiography - Moab is My Washpot, The Fry Chronicles and More Fool Me. Mythos and Heroes, his retelling of the Greek myths, are both Sunday Times bestsellers.

'Rhapsodic, intoxicated and very touching' Mail on Sunday With a new foreword by the author Moab is My Washpot is in turns funny, shocking, tender, delicious, sad, lyrical, bruisingly frank and addictively readable. Stephen Fry's bestselling memoir tells how, sent to a boarding school 200 miles from home at the age of seven, he survived beatings, misery, love, ecstasy, carnal violation, expulsion, imprisonment, criminal conviction, probation and catastrophe to emerge, at eighteen, ready to try and face the world in which he had always felt a stranger. When he was fifteen, he wrote this in a letter to himself, not to be read until he was twenty-five: 'Well I tell you now that everything I feel now, everything I am now is truer and better than anything I shall ever be. Ever. This is me now, the real me. Every day that I grow away from the me that is writing this now is a betrayal and a defeat.' Whether the real Stephen Fry is the man now living, or the extraordinary adolescent now dead, only you will be able to decide.

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