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To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

- Peter Ackroyd
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Author:
Peter Ackroyd
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Life
King
Limits
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Health, money. That's what people worried about in the 14th century as much as today. I find it so much more interesting than the supposed activities of kings, queens, generals.

'London' is a gallery of sensation of impressions. It is a history of London in a thematic rather than a chronological sense with chapters of the history of smells, the history of silence, and the history of light. I have described the book as a labyrinth, and in that sense in complements my description of London itself.

I enjoyed reading and learning at school, and at university I enjoyed extending my reading and learning. Once I left Cambridge, I went to Yale as a fellow. I spent two years there. After that, George Gale made me literary editor of 'The Spectator.'

I wanted to be a poet when I was 20; I had no interest in fiction or biography and precious little interest in history, but those three elements in my life have become the most important.

To be a writer was always my greatest aim. I remember writing a play about Guy Fawkes when I was 10. I suppose it's significant, at least to me, that my first work should be about a historical figure.

I think biography can be more personal than fiction, and certainly can be more expressive.

In London, I've always lived within 10 miles of where I was born. You see, there is something called a spirit of place, and my place happens to be London, at least once a fortnight.

It may seem unfashionable to say so, but historians should seize the imagination as well as the intellect. History is, in a sense, a story, a narrative of adventure and of vision, of character and of incident. It is also a portrait of the great general drama of the human spirit.

You don't have to be brought up in a grand house to have a sense of the past, and I truly believe that there are certain people to whom or through whom the territory - the place, the past - speaks.

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To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.

To watch King Lear is to approach the recognition that there is indeed no meaning in life, and that there are limits to human understanding.