Four Books on GMH

Thanks to AbeBooks and Christmases, I've got four books on Gerard Manley Hopkins.

The first I read (5 years ago as a library book) was Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Very Private Life, by Robert Bernard Martin, professor emeritus of English at Princeton.

This is a very comprehensive biography (~ 420 pages), giving special interest especially to Hopkins' early years. The style is more direct than the one below. If it errs, I think it errs on the side of presenting Hopkins as a genius driven to insanity by his repressed homosexuality in conflict with his (self-imposed) religion and strict life as a Jesuit. Martin had access to the unpublished portions of Hopkins' diaries, which apparently proves his points.

The next I read (3 years ago) is Gerard Manley Hopkins: A Life, by Paul Mariani, chair in English at Boston College. Another comprehensive book (~ 430 pages) in a more lyrical style, placing more interest in Hopkins' life post-conversion. If it errs, I think it errs on the side of hagiography. Mariani's son is himself a Jesuit. I think Mariani paints a more accurate image of what led Hopkins to become a Catholic and a Jesuit, though his portrayal of what led Hopkins to the brink of despair and suicide is less convincing.

The next is In Extremity, by John Robinson. I haven't read much from this one yet. It is not a comprehensive biography, though it does touch on biographical elements in close-to chronological order. It is a more in-depth analysis of the poetry, as far as I can see. From what I gleaned, the thesis of the book is that Hopkins lived his life intentionally "in extremity." 

The last, not a biography, but a historical fiction novel featuring Hopkins as a main character, is Exiles, by Ron Hansen. I've read about a third of it. Though the dialogue and details had to be invented, they seem closely tied to real events in Hopkins' life, or things he wrote in his journals, or things other people wrote about him. It covers the period of Hopkins' life when he came out of poetic silence by writing The Wreck of the Deutschland, providing the backstories of the nuns who were drowned in the shipwreck.