Until his death in 1974, Cyril Connolly - celebrated essayist and critic at the core of the English creative scene - experienced a turbulent and sometimes troubled existence in both his professional and personal worlds.

Edited by his son, Matthew, The Two Natures is the second and final volume of Cyril Connolly's Selected Works, and contains The Unquiet Grave, his famous and passionate meditation on the achievements of European culture from ancient times to modern, penned during the Second World War. With an extract from his early masterpiece, Enemies of Promise - Connolly's frequently charming and occasionally horrifying account of his boyhood - and various travel essays, memoirs and satirical short stories, and concluding with his paean to poetry, The Two Natures is a glorious testament to a great literary life.

`Almost everything Connolly wrote was stylish and intelligent, informed and passionate . . . He's a writer for all seasons, for all readers' William Boyd

`Connolly was right to suggest that size, scale or breadth could never be a proper measure of a writer's worth. To find out what were - and are - do investigate further' Independent

`If Connolly requires a monument, open these volumes' Spectator

`Excitement is Connolly's legacy. A literal world surrounds us, and science overtakes us . . . But passion is not quite dead' New Statesman