Tibor Fischer

Tortured youths: how childhood misery often makes for genius

Matthew Parris’s roll call of celebs who overcame early trauma includes Edward Lear, Rudyard Kipling, Abraham Lincoln, Lenin and Wittgenstein

Edward Lear’s childhood was so grim even Dickens might have baulked at fictionalising it. Drawing by W.N. Marstrand. Credit: Getty Images 
issue 21 November 2020
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  • Fracture: Stories of How Great Lives Take Root in Trauma

    Matthew Parris

    Profile, pp. 304, £16

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