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Books

Dennis Potter: one of the last great masters of vituperation

Potter’s hardboiled, sarcastic wit was heroic — but beneath it lay a nostalgic yearning for an imaginary Eden, as revealed in The Art of Invective: Selected Non-fiction, 1953–94

11 July 2015

9:00 AM

11 July 2015

9:00 AM

The Art of Invective: Selected Non-Fiction, 1953–94 Dennis Potter, edited by Ian Greaves, David Rolinson and John Williams, with a foreword by Peter Bowker

Oberon Books, pp.397, £24.99, ISBN: 9781783192038

‘Genuine invective is an almost lost art in our wild satirical age,’ Dennis Potter complained in New Society in 1966. Now, as the British Film Institute celebrates the life and work of ‘the writer who redefined TV drama’, Oberon Books, with perfect timing, offers this collection of Potter’s critical abuse in journalism and interviews at its most constructively eloquent.

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