'[A] meticulously detailed biography [which] brings us as close as we are likely to come to this awkward, sometimes mysterious, sometimes transparently foolish man.' John Spurling, Sunday Times
'The restrained, informed and clear judgements [Barnes] makes, testify to his critical and organizational flair … After this study, no other biography with the right mixture of intellectual, social and creative skills is likely to appear for a very long time, and few new revelations about Pasternak's life can be expected … [a] magnificent biography and critique.' Times Literary Supplement
'In this extraordinary book, Barnes does for Boris Pasternak what Joseph Frank, in his brilliant multivolume study, did for Fyodor Dostoevsky … i. e. … combine meticulous scholarship with a broad understanding of the times and weave both into an enthralling account of the writer's life and works.' E. Yarwood, Choice
'One is tempted to use the word definitive - at least for the present generation - in the case of this book. As the crowning achievement of more than two decades of sustained research, it deserves comparison with much other mutivolume studies as Avril Pyman's work on the poet Aleksander Blok, although Mr Barnes is more objective than Ms Pyman and Joseph Frank's celebrated biography of Dostoevsky.' David Bethea, The New York Times Book Review
'Christopher Barnes writes carefully, intelligently, and with a restrained gentlemany wit that softens the impact of his thorough and intimidating familiarity with his subject and with the people, events, and issues involved in the first stage of Boris Pasternak's career … It is indeed a literary biography in its best function, that of a handmaiden to a serious study of the poet's art.' World Literature Today
'Christopher Barnes's Literary Biography, of which this solid work is the first of two volumes, will certainly become the standard and indispensable guide for students not only of the poet but of his age and literary milieu.' John Bayley, London Review of Books
'Barnes's book is admirably full and scholarly; it is also self-effacing; he does not offer judgements, but seeks to understand and situate the young Pasternak in his time, against a background of European symbolism, futurism and revolution.' The Scotsman
'… an impressively thorough and sensitive account of Pasternak's life in the period up to 1928, with a well judged balance between the private and the public … In all, this volume conveys a sharp and consistent intuition of a complex poetic personality.' The Slavonic and East European Review
'Christopher Barnes's book … rests on a mountain of scholarly research: when completed, it is likely to become the definitive reference work to Pasternak's life.' The Sunday Times
