The Knife Man
- Published: 1 February 2011
- ISBN: 9781409044628
- Imprint: Transworld Digital
- Format: EBook
- Pages: 656
A brilliant study of the medical life and times of Georgian Britain. This is a tour de force.
The Good Book Guide
A fine piece of work and I found it hard to believe that it is the author's first book. It is carefully researched, engagingly written and generously illustrated
Sunday Herald
Always vivid and entertaining... The Knife Man leaves one entranced with Moore's hero and the age in which he lived
James Le Fanu, Literary Review
An extraordinary insight into the experimental, macabre world of a remarkable eighteenth- century surgeon who risked all to learn about the hitherto unknown workings of the human body
Josceline Dimbleby, author of A Profound Secret
Excellent... Moore has helped to pay the debt we all owe to this short-tempered dyslexic healer, who slept only four hours a night and claimed to have dissected some 2,000 corpses
Sunday Telegraph
Gruesome but fascinating... Not for the squeamish, this visceral portrait offers a wonderful insight into sickness, suffering and surgery in the 18th century. Excellent
Guardian
Here is a perfect subject for a biography: an exciting and informed account of Hunter's life and times
Publishing News
Marvellous... Moore's detailed and sympathetic portrait will do much to make Hunter a less enigmatic figure... This book should be the point of departure for anybody interested in the life and work of this most extraordinary Georgian
Times Higher Educational Supplement
Marvellous... There is wit here, without banality; there is scholarship, without pomposity; there is history of the Georgian period that drives you to seek more about that same period - and there can be no greater compliment for a biographer. A classic unputdownable page-turner. It's a winner all round - and now I've finished it, I'm going to start all over again
Claire Rayner, writer and health adviser
Moore's feel for pace and narrative is impeccable. She excels on the nitty-gritty of his work - the carving, digging, slicing and bottling - but makes us understand why these horrors were wonders. She is, at last, the biographer Hunter deserves
Independent
Moore's tireless devotion to detail brings the man and his maverick career vividly, compellingly, gruesomely to life... Medicine needs more John Hunters, and biography needs more Wendy Moores
The New York Times
The primitive operations without anaesthesia, the bitter rivalries and battles, the struggle against snobbery and orthodoxy - all set against a kaleidoscopic Hogarthian backdrop of gin-shops, brothels, elegant drawing rooms, charnel houses and crude operating theatres. This is a truly fascinating read
Dr Alan Maryon Davis, Writer and Snr Consultant, Guy’s Hospital
Wendy Moore has done justice to this marvellous man in a biography packed with gruesome facts and eye-opening perceptions. It is an accomplished achievement and a splendid read
The Times
Wendy Moore has written an immensely readable account of one of the most fascinating individuals of the 18th century. A thoroughly enjoyable and entertaining biography
Patrick McGrath, author of Port Mungo
Wendy Moore is to be commended for an endlessly informative book which draws on a vast number of sources...
Glasgow Herald