Between 1929 and 1933, the gay English writer Christopher Isherwood lived in Berlin, a period in his life that he brilliantly captured in two of his autobiographical books, the novel “Mr Norris Changes Trains” and the short story collection, “Goodbye to Berlin”, which went on to spawn the movies, “Cabaret” and “I Am A Camera.” Through his detached, self-declared photographic narrative style, these offer an intimate, atmospheric portrait of the cabaret culture, eccentric expatriates, and decadent milieu that was about to be swept away by the Nazi takeover.

“[Katherine Bucknell’s book is] a first-rate biography of the man, the writer, and the lover.” (David Hockney)


Katherine Bucknell edited all four volumes of Christopher Isherwood's diaries (published by Chatto), a volume of letters between Christopher Isherwood and his partner Don Bachardy (“The Animals”), and W.H. Auden's “Juvenilia: Poems 1922-1928”. Co-editor of Auden Studies, a founder of The W. H. Auden Society, and director of the Christopher Isherwood Foundation, she is widely recognised as a leading authority on Isherwood. She is also the author of five novels. She was born in Vietnam, raised in America, and lives in London.

Ross MacFarlane is an archivist who has over twenty years’ experience working on the history of science and medicine. He has researched, lectured, and written on a range of topics, such as aspects of the occult, the history of early recorded sound, and the collection of amulets and charms in Edwardian London. He is a regular book reviewer for Fortean Times and has also published in magazines and journals such as “New Scientist”, “The Lancet”, “Folklore”, as well as “Notes and Records of the Royal Society”.