Beau Brummell - by Ian Kelly (Paperback)

About the Book

An acclaimed biographer vividly recounts the dramatic and tragic story of Beau Brummell, the most famous man in late 18th-century England, the first modern celebrity and "metrosexual," from Brummell's meteoric rise as a society darling to his disgrace and plummet into poverty and madness.

Book Synopsis

"If people turn to look at you in the street, you are not well dressed, but either too stiff, too tight, or too fashionable."

-- Beau Brummell

Long before tabloids and television, Beau Brummell was the first person famous for being famous, the male socialite of his time, the first metrosexual -- 200 years before the word was conceived. His name has become synonymous with wit, profligacy, fine tailoring, and fashion. A style pundit, Brummell was singly responsible for changing forever the way men dress -- inventing, in effect, the suit.

Brummell cut a dramatic swath through British society, from his early years as a favorite of the Prince of Wales and an arbiter of taste in the Age of Elegance, to his precipitous fall into poverty, incarceration, and madness. Brummell created the blueprint for celebrity crash and burn, falling dramatically out of favor and spending his last years in a hellish asylum. For nearly two decades, Brummell ruled over the tastes and pursuits of the well heeled and influential, and for almost as long, lived in penury and exile.

With vivid prose, critically acclaimed biographer Ian Kelly unlocks the glittering, turbulent world of late-eighteenth/early-nineteenth-century London -- the first truly modern metropolis: venal, fashion-and-celebrity obsessed, self-centered and self-doubting -- through the life of one of its greatest heroes and most tragic victims. Brummell personified London's West End, where a new style of masculinity and modern men's fashion were first defined.

Brummell was the leading Casanova and elusive bachelor of his time, appealing to both men and women of his society. The man Lord Byron once claimed was more important than Napoleon, Brummell was the ultimate cosmopolitan man. "Toyboy" to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and leader of playboys including the eventual king of England, Brummell inspired Pushkin to write Eugene Onegin, and Byron to write Don Juan, and he influenced others from Oscar Wilde to Coco Chanel.

Through love letters, historical records, and poems, Kelly reveals the man inside the suit, unlocking the scandalous behavior of London's high society while illuminating Brummell's enigmatic life in the colorful, tumultuous West End. A rare rendering of an era filled with excess, scandal, promiscuity, opulence, and luxury, Beau Brummell is the first comprehensive view of an elegant and ultimately tragic figure whose influence continues to this day.

Review Quotes

"A superlative book . . . thoughtful, absorbing and hugely diverting. Besides an astute biography, we get a panorama of the times . . . Lushly illustrated, carefully researched, and intelligently argued, this biography will entertain and enlighten." -- George Walden, "Daily Mail" (London)

"Almost unbearably moving." -- "The Herald"

"Magisterial, utterly gripping." -- Philip Hoare, "The Independent"

"Sharp and sophisticated . . . worthy of Balzac." -- Damian Thompson, "Mail on Sunday"

"Splendid . . . What makes this book much more than just a relaxed, racy biography is the way its author brings to life not just the man but also the time in which he lived." -- Colin McDowell, "Sunday Times"

"The best book ever written about London." -- BBC Radio 5

"Magisterial, utterly gripping."

-- Philip Hoare, "The Independent"

"Sharp and sophisticated . . . worthy of Balzac."

-- Damian Thompson, "Mail on Sunday"

"The best book ever written about London."

-- BBC Radio 5

"Almost unbearably moving."

-- "The Herald"

"Almost unbearably moving."

-- "The Herald"