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A Book of Secrets, Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers by Michael Holroyd (view source)
Revision as of 11:00, 2 October 2020
, 11:00, 2 October 2020no edit summary
{{infoboxinfobox1|title=A Book of Secrets, Illegitimate Daughters, Absent Fathers|sort=Book of Secrets, Illegitimate Daughters ,Absent Fathers
|author=Michael Holroyd
|reviewer=George Care
|borrow=Yes
|isbn=978-0099548942
|pages=272
|publisher=Vintage Books
|date=November 2011
|summary=A treasure trove of hidden lives, family mysteries and uncelebrated achievements.
|cover=0099548941
|aznuk=0099548941
|aznus=0099548941
}}
Picture the crowded atelier of the renowned sculptor, Rodin or perhaps the dimly lit corridor's corridors of Lord Grimthorpe's mansion. Perhaps you might prefer to frequent the brightly lit splendour of the balconies of the coastal villa at Cimbrione Cimbrone above the magnificent Gulf of Salerno. The inhabitants of such places led their tangled lives, sometimes enduring painful losses or by contrast, energetically inspired to passionate love affairs. In these stimulating environments we catch glimpses of the famous, like E.M.Forster, Virginia Woolf, sometimes accompanied by her close confidante, Vita Sackville West and then there was that tempestuous iconoclast, D.H.Lawrence. Many such lives were inspired by both landscape and lust, fashioned by each other's creative energies and endowed with artistic talents of all kinds. Here we learn of talents and beauty that inspires artistic endeavour, like the many charms of Eve Fairfax. She, who after brief affairs was gradually forced into a stoic suspension which she recorded with thoughts from her friends in the pages of annotated diaries which became ''A Book of Secrets''.
The Becketts were Yorkshire bankers and MPs who over several generations owned a series of estates and Gothic brickwork mansions. Ernest William, the second Lord Grimthorpe, was sent to Eton and by nature appears to have been, as Holroyd ironically remarks, a schoolboy that in some ways never quite grew up, though he did arrive at Trinity College, Cambridge in May 1875. Much about him is surrounded in mystery but his prowess with women soon became almost notorious soon after he reached London, a fact recorded by the writer George Moore describing him as 'London's greatest lover'. Ernest was to take the tours customary for young gentlemen around Europe on which he pursued in succession Eve Fairfax who was briefly his fiancée and then met his wife, Luie, a rich American whose story forms an intriguing digression, in Rome. After her most unfortunate death in childbirth, Ernest Beckett was to end up in the arms of Alice Keppel who was to embark upon a dalliance, as is well known, with the Prince of Wales. Besides these, there was a voluptuous Spanish American lady in Rome whom Ernest conveniently installed in Bayswater.
The Guardian reported recently, ''Biography is a genre in crisis, according to perhaps Britain's best-known biographer, the author of highly acclaimed works on Lytton Strachey, Augustus John and George Bernard Shaw.'' In particular literary biography, he feels has been superseded by the myriad forms of the internet and other popular entertainments. Holroyd says that this is his last book. However, here he is once again energised by the whole process of searching archives and reconstructs the cultivated, privileged and mostly civilised society back to the early Edwardians. In measured, wry and sympathetic tones he takes the reader into the luxuriant and variegated gardens of the past. He finds time to discuss the role of imagination in the art of biography. In this finely written book he carefully spreads enlightenment as he carefully distinguishes between guesswork, probability and established facts.
If this book appeals then you might also enjoy [[Star of the Morning: The Extraordinary Life of Lady Hester Stanhope by Kirsten Ellis]] or [[The Frog Princess by Angie Beasley]].
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[[Category:Autobiography]]