Sidetracks: Explorations Of A Romantic Biographer

Richard Holmes

Editions

Review

Fond memories of his Footsteps: Adventures Of A Romantic Biographer pbk £7.99hbk £20 (1985) made it certain that I would not miss this latest book by Richard Holmes, literary sleuth, author of Dr. Johnson And Mr. Savage pbk £6.99, and the best contemporary biographer of both Shelley and Coleridge.  Organized to show how his researches in various directions led him to tackle the larger subjects of these last books, this volume of biographical ruminations is, in fact, a satisfyingly generous collection of essays and articles taken from the whole of Holmes’s career.

The book begins with a sparkling 1970 essay on that unfortunate child prodigy poet and forger, Thomas Chatterton.  With youthful enthusiasm (and an aptitude that never deserts him for visualizing the past), Holmes convincingly sketches the details of the poet’s life, overturning as he does so the conventional view of his sad fate.  Possibly it was a mistake to include two radio scripts here (interesting, but hard to read).  These apart, the pieces included are all very worthwhile.  Subjects investigated include M R James and his ghosts, the early Paris photographer Nadar, the meaning of Voltaire’s celebrated grin, and the tortured inner lives of two Reverend literary gentlemen, Thomas Barham (of the ‘Ingoldsby Legends’) and Charles (‘Melmoth’) Maturin.  Perhaps best of all is a superlative long essay on the relationship between William Godwin and Mary Wollstonecraft.  This is literary history at its finest. - review by John Wyse Jackson (Seán)