BJ. William Plomer

24. The Autobiography of William Plomer. London: Cape, 1975.

During 1972 and 1973 Plomer undertook the rewriting of his autobiography. He worked through Double Lives (10), making stylistic changes to all chapters, but his death in September 1973 cut short the project before he had reworked At Home (15). This work combines in one narrative sequence the rewrite of the former and a reprint of the latter. Chapters 18-22, ‘A Passage to Asia’, ‘“Gone Native”’, ‘Dangerous Thoughts’, and ‘Not Through Eastern Windows Only’, correspond to the four chapters of part III in Double Lives, and include the same detail, stance, and tone, if not always the same syntax and paragraph divisions. Chapter 23 reprints ‘Through Siberia in a Trance’ (12) under the title ‘A Passage to Europe’. See also 37.