SOURCE: Christiansen, Rupert. “Hanging out the Washing.” Spectator 269, no. 8578 (5 December 1992): 45-6.

In the following review, Christiansen asserts that Hamilton's Keepers of the Flame is entertaining and enjoyable to read, but that it does not resolve or add to ongoing critical debates about literary biography.

This is a book which I nearly wrote myself. The idea for a study of the posthumous fate of authors at the hands of their executors and biographers came originally, I believe, from Francis King, but for a number of reasons Hutchinson commissioned me instead. After a year's research, I decided that the subject was intractable and cancelled my contract. The chalice was passed to Ian Hamilton (with whom, incidentally, I have had no contact whatsoever)—an obvious and admirable choice, in the light of his troubled quest, In Search of J. D. Salinger.

Much of what he has come up with [in Keepers...