Peter Quennell (1905–1993)

“Mad, bad, dangerous to know.” These words bring to mind any of the dark, inscrutable characters of 19th-century English literature, whether Lord Darcy, Heathcliff, or their spiritual heirs in the Twilight franchise. However, the phrase was first coined to describe a real literary figure, not a fictional character, George Gordon, Lord Byron.

This book offers a generous selection of Byron’s poetry, journals, and a few letters. It opens with a biographical essay by editor Peter Quennell. show more Despite its 700 pages, the book fits easily in a coat pocket and has a soft but durable binding.

Until now, I’d only encountered Byron in Palgrave’s Golden Treasury or other anthologies, where apart from the exquisite “So We’ll Go No More A-Roving” and the nearly as good “She Walks in Beauty,” I wasn’t impressed. But in longer works, such as “Childe Harold” or “Don Juan,” Byron comes into his own. I particularly liked the latter, represented here by its first four cantos, in which gripping narratives that describe a perilous sea voyage or the love and downfall of Haidee and Juan are interrupted with savagely witty digressions and comical metatext. One of these days, I hope to read the rest of this massive poem.

When Byron’s diction is set next to that of contemporaries such as Shelley or Keats, it seems plainer and more straightforward. This works to his advantage in the long narrative poems. Two centuries on, he sounds more modern, and I rarely needed to consult a dictionary or lexicon of mythology, as I do with Shelley, for instance.

My appreciation of Byron increased with the prose works reprinted here, revealing a contradictory character, by turns sullen and rueful, then playful. Perhaps it was all a pose—the reluctant celebrity who prefers to dine “in solitude, where we are least alone”—but it suits him well. For biographer Quennell, there is no doubt: Byron created the persona and then was trapped in it. show less

This well worn volume was published in 1973 and it lacks the more recent PC language
relating to racism, sexism, or animal cruelty.

Though I've never read a reference book straight through, this was interesting enough to continue
from the compelling "Anglo-Saxon Prelude" to the mid-twentieth century.

The range of the enlightening illustrations make the more repetitious or boring entries more lively.

And some of the stronger opinions remain disputable:

"A far finer artist than Hardy, and a much show more more conscientious and celebrate craftsman was HENRY JAMES..."

...who can be more dismally boring than any of Hardy.

Still, it is a decent reference with fun pictures. show less

Very good read on eighteenth century life

I picked this up from a second-hand stall, not sure if I really wanted to read short biographies of four important writers from the eighteenth century, but it is so well written it was hard to put down. Quennell gives a subtitle 'Studies in the Eighteenth Century', and his 'pen portraits' of James Boswell, Edward Gibbon, Laurence Sterne and John Wilkes give a wonderful sense of what life was like around the 1760's to 1790's. These writers are picked show more for the different aspects of life which they and their writings contributed to the spirit of that age, and which go together to give the flavour of the culture of late eighteenth century England. To quote his conclusion:

‘To each portrait can be attached some distinguishing features of the latter eighteenth century. Wilkes typifies that passion for personal and political freedom which Englishmen had inherited from the preceding epoch and were to carry on triumphantly throughout the next; Gibbon, the ironic detachment with which classicism mined away at classicist foundations. Boswell, inquisitive and introspective, tormented by the desire "savoir tout au fond," represents a new revolutionary mode of thinking and in literature. As for Sterne — it was his function to introduce the cult of sympathy and, whereas the Augustan Age had condescended austerely towards the weak and miserable, to discover in unhappiness and helplessness a positive moral charm, thus anticipating the age of Jacobin enthusiasts who for the sake of humanity would sign inhuman sentences, till the tyrannous reign of good intentions was at last replaced by the relatively mild despotism of a military dictator.
London, September 1944’ show less

I finally got around to reading this book after owning it for over 20 years! As a fan and a teacher of ancient history, I found this book interesting but, ultimately, unsatisfying. There is not nearly as much as I would have liked on the Colosseum as a structure: no diagrams, relatively few photos. What the book does do is set the monument's historical and cultural context, giving a taste of gladiatorial and beast shows, but also showing the wider Roman scene: the Circus, theatres, and other show more diversions. However, most of this can just as easily be got from more general books on Ancient Rome.

A lot of the book is a review of the Colosseum in history and literature, right up until the nineteenth century. Much of this is interesting, although Quennell has to eek out the few references with much more general material. Still, interesting stuff about the fate of Roman antiquities from Late Antiquity through the Renaissance to the dawn of the 20th century. Many literary references.

Unfortunately there is little about the Colosseum after 1900. It is almost as if the clearning of the fabled vegetation signalled the end of an era. Who'd have thought? So nothing on the excavation of the subrooms, nor how it was used in the last century, or prospects for the Colosseum now. Go elsewhere if you want a thorough treatment of the Flavian Amphitheatre. show less