SOURCE: Lucas, John. “Lord Weary.” New Statesman 105, no. 2721 (13 May 1983): 25-6.

In the following review, Lucas praises Hamilton's Robert Lowell as an impressive biography.

Why do we need biographies of writers? I can think of only two I would not be without, and Boswell and John Forster not only had an affectionate, awed familiarity with their great subjects, they also had a marvellous story to tell. Most writers, however, do not lead particularly interesting lives, and would not be written about were it not for their art. Yet there is no doubt that people want biographies, and mostly, I suspect, for what they feel are excusable reasons (though in fact they're pretty unpleasant ones). If you know that in private life a writer had unhappy love affairs, drank too much, didn't pay his debts, made friends unwisely, was—well, ordinary, it helps to reconcile you to his superior talent...