Portraits from Memory

''I have come to think that one of the main causes of trouble in the world is dogmatic and fanatical belief in some doctrine for which there is no adequate evidence.'' - Bertrand Russell, Portraits from Memory

Portraits from Memory is one of Bertrand Russell''s most self-reflective and engaging books. Whilst not intended as an autobiography, it is a vivid recollection of some of his celebrated contemporaries, such as George Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb and D. H. Lawrence. Russell provides some arresting and sometimes amusing insights into writers with whom he corresponded. He was fascinated by Joseph Conrad, with whom he formed a strong emotional bond, writing that his Heart of Darkness was not just a story but an expression of Conrad''s ''philosophy of life''. There are also some typically pithy Russellian observations; H. G. Wells ''derived his importance from quantity rather than quality'', whilst after a brief and fraught