This Long Pursuit: Reflections of a Romantic Biographer

This Long Pursuit: Reflections of a Romantic Biographer
Richard Holmes

Across three centuries, and much of Europe – “Holmes writes beautifully… A masterly performance by the greatest literary biographer of his generation’ The OldieIn this kaleidoscope of stories spanning art, science and poetry, award-winning writer Richard Holmes confesses to a lifetime’s obsession with his Romantic subjects. This pursuit has taken him across three centuries, through much of Europe and into the lively company of many earlier biographers.Central to this quest is a powerful evocation of the lives of women both scientific and literary, some well-known and others almost lost: Margaret Cavendish, Mary Somerville, Germaine de Staël, Mary Wollstonecraft and Zélide. He investigates the myths that have overshadowed the lives of some favourite Romantics: the love-stunned John Keats, the waterlogged Percy Bysshe Shelley, the chocolate-box painter Thomas Lawrence, the opium-soaked genius Coleridge, and the mad-visionary bard William Blake.The diversity of Holmes’s material is testimony to his empathy, erudition and enquiring spirit; and at times his mischievous streak. This Long Pursuit contains Richard Holmes’s most personal and seductive writing yet.

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Copyright (#u9bb67233-e56a-5a27-b132-d1ea559f6bf4)

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

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London SE1 9GF

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This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2016

Copyright © Richard Holmes 2016

The author asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Cover image © shutterstock.com (eye)

Cover design by Heike Schüssler

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Source ISBN: 9780008168728

Ebook Edition © October 2016 ISBN: 9780008168711

Version: 2017-09-06

Dedication (#u9bb67233-e56a-5a27-b132-d1ea559f6bf4)

To Arabella Pike

my wonderful editor for more than twenty years

Contents

Cover (#u476b84f5-5bf7-58e8-8772-b5a7ea4afa36)

Title Page (#u3857f710-e571-5263-988d-6f7ca4001b6a)

Copyright (#u8594db45-772d-5c88-98c3-0d7cc683c54c)

Dedication (#u6e21d2d3-b83d-5dc8-a22f-f3b866c3c056)

CONFESSIONS (#ue10ccd70-b867-5e80-bd11-66adda1ec425)

1 Travelling (#u94d11589-848e-56d1-bc8e-f2aaa2dc72de)

2 Experimenting (#u86a4ac54-3542-544c-bdff-8518b902f9a4)

3 Teaching (#uccf3d483-7177-5cd2-a0dc-2280e31c355e)

4 Forgetting (#u6264f1a4-5726-5bd1-bbc8-9261d6c2b3c0)

5 Ballooning (#litres_trial_promo)

RESTORATIONS (#litres_trial_promo)

6 Margaret Cavendish (#litres_trial_promo)

7 Zélide (#litres_trial_promo)

8 Madame de Staël (#litres_trial_promo)

9 Mary Wollstonecraft (#litres_trial_promo)

10 Mary Somerville (#litres_trial_promo)

AFTERLIVES (#litres_trial_promo)

11 John Keats the Well-Beloved (#litres_trial_promo)

12 Shelley Undrowned (#litres_trial_promo)

13 Thomas Lawrence Revarnished (#litres_trial_promo)

14 Coleridge Misremembered (#litres_trial_promo)

15 William Blake Rediscovered (#litres_trial_promo)

Acknowledgements (#litres_trial_promo)

List of Illustrations (#litres_trial_promo)

Picture Section (#litres_trial_promo)

Index (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)