Who turned the page?

Ian Hamilton is a biographer, critic and poet. He was editor of the poetry magazine Review until 1972 and later of New Review. He is also the thwarted biographer of JD Salinger. Hamilton may have courted a career of literary obscurity up to a point (choosing off-beat subjects such as literary estates in his book Keepers of the Flame), but he will not succeed in becoming as elusive as his quarry. Especially not now that his friends and former colleagues have produced a Festschrift for his 60th birthday called Another Round at the Pillars.

Blake Morrison, Julian Barnes, Ian McEwan,…