Book Review: Stirling Moss The Authorised Biography by Robert Edwards
Stirling Moss formally retired from racing more than a decade before I was born, but his presence still loomed large in my upbring. And having finished as championship runner-up four times and third on three occasions before his career was curtailed by a near-fatal accident at Goodwood in 1962, his customary billing as, “the greatest driver never to win the F1 world title” would appear to hold as true today as it did half a century ago.
Then there were the countless other victories that cemented his reputation as a peerless all-rounder, not least driving the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR to victory with Denis Jenkinson in the 1955 Mille Miglia, or beating the Ferraris to the 1959 Nürburgring 1,000km in an Aston Martin DBR1.
The only time I can remember watching him race was in the Aston, too, at Goodwood Revival in 1998. He wasn’t winning, but we were transfixed all the same and thoroughly enjoyed a late move up the inside, with a wave of acknowledgement to the rival who’d been left with no option but to leave space!
Moss has collaborated on books about his career before of course, notably the original best-seller All But My Life (with Ken Purdy, 1963) and My Cars, My Career (with Doug Nye, 1987), both of which are on my shelf. But it’s a measure of Moss’s trust in his biographer and the depth of the archives to which the writer is granted access, not to mention testament to such a long and extraordinary life, that there is material in this book that will be news to just about everybody reading it.
Particularly arresting is the detail on the antisemitic bullying he suffered at English public school during World War II (Moss’s father Alfred was Jewish, Moss being an anglicization of Moses) and the correspondence between Alfred and a witness to the Goodwood accident.
Edwards is most successful when he roams a little outside the traditional structure of a career retrospective, delving more into why Moss did things than recounting what he did. About halfway through the narrative becomes a little more conventional for a time and some of the magic is lost, but this is perhaps inevitable as he sets the scene for that fateful April day.
Overall though this is a great one-stop-shop for what you need to know about Britain’s first superstar racing driver and a man who transcended motorsport to become one of the nation’s first pop-culture celebrities. Unlike many of the Z-listers who followed however, Moss really was one of the greatest in his field.
Stirling Moss The Authorised Biography
by Robert Edwards
Orion, 2005. ISBN 0-75286-562-5
Find it on eBay
Then there were the countless other victories that cemented his reputation as a peerless all-rounder, not least driving the Mercedes-Benz 300 SLR to victory with Denis Jenkinson in the 1955 Mille Miglia, or beating the Ferraris to the 1959 Nürburgring 1,000km in an Aston Martin DBR1.
The only time I can remember watching him race was in the Aston, too, at Goodwood Revival in 1998. He wasn’t winning, but we were transfixed all the same and thoroughly enjoyed a late move up the inside, with a wave of acknowledgement to the rival who’d been left with no option but to leave space!
Moss has collaborated on books about his career before of course, notably the original best-seller All But My Life (with Ken Purdy, 1963) and My Cars, My Career (with Doug Nye, 1987), both of which are on my shelf. But it’s a measure of Moss’s trust in his biographer and the depth of the archives to which the writer is granted access, not to mention testament to such a long and extraordinary life, that there is material in this book that will be news to just about everybody reading it.
Particularly arresting is the detail on the antisemitic bullying he suffered at English public school during World War II (Moss’s father Alfred was Jewish, Moss being an anglicization of Moses) and the correspondence between Alfred and a witness to the Goodwood accident.
Edwards is most successful when he roams a little outside the traditional structure of a career retrospective, delving more into why Moss did things than recounting what he did. About halfway through the narrative becomes a little more conventional for a time and some of the magic is lost, but this is perhaps inevitable as he sets the scene for that fateful April day.
Overall though this is a great one-stop-shop for what you need to know about Britain’s first superstar racing driver and a man who transcended motorsport to become one of the nation’s first pop-culture celebrities. Unlike many of the Z-listers who followed however, Moss really was one of the greatest in his field.
Stirling Moss The Authorised Biography
by Robert Edwards
Orion, 2005. ISBN 0-75286-562-5
Find it on eBay