Le romantique

Fuyant l’Irlande, où il est né en 1799, Cashel Greville Ross s’enrôle dans l’armée. Ainsi débute un parcours tumultueux, semé d’épisodes glorieux et de revers de fortune, dans les pas de l’Histoire. Blessé et décoré à la bataille de Waterloo puis témoin des atrocités de l’armée anglaise aux Indes, il arpente la France et l’Italie, où il se lie d’amitié avec Byron et Shelley avant de tomber éperdument amoureux de la mystérieuse Raffaella. Mais le goût de l’aventure l’emporte inexorablement chez ce romantique impétueux. Célébré à Londres pour ses récits de voyage, floué par son éditeur, emprisonné un temps pour dettes, il bondit allègrement d’un continent à l’autre, et se réinvente tour à tour en fermier d’Amérique, explorateur à la recherche des sources du Nil ou encore diplomate à Trieste. Avec une jubilation contagieuse et un souffle irrésistible, William Boyd nous entraîne dans la chevauchée débridée d’un personnage follement attachant, et nous enchante à la manière des grands romanciers anglais du XIXe siècle. Soldier. Farmer. Felon. Writer. Father. Lover. One Man, Many Lives. Born In 1799, Cashel Greville Ross Experiences Myriad Lives: Joyous And Devastating, Years Of Luck And Unexpected Loss. Moving From County Cork To London, From Waterloo To Zanzibar, Cashel Seeks His Fortune Across Continents In War And In Peace. He Faces A Terrible Moral Choice In A Village In Sri Lanka As Part Of The East Indian Army. He Enters The World Of The Romantic Poets In Pisa. In Ravenna He Meets A Woman Who Will Live In His Heart For The Rest Of His Days. As He Travels The World As A Soldier, A Farmer, A Felon, A Writer, A Father, A Lover, He Experiences All The Vicissitudes Of Life And, Through The Accelerating Turbulence Of The Nineteenth Century, He Discovers Who He Truly Is. This Is The Romance Of Life Itself, And The Beating Heart Of The Romantic. From One Of Britain's Best-loved And Bestselling Writers Comes An Intimate Yet Panoramic Novel Set Across The Nineteenth Century. ***praise For William Boyd*** 'there Are Few Reading Pleasures As Great As Giving In To A William Boyd Novel' Sunday Times 'one Of Our Best Contemporary Storytellers' Spectator 'simply The Best Realistic Storyteller Of His Generation' Sebastian Faulks A new 'whole life' novel from William Boyd, the author of Any Human Heart. Set in the 19th century, the novel follows the roller-coaster fortunes of a man as he tries to negotiate the random stages, adventures and vicissitudes of his life. He is variously a soldier, a lover, a husband, a father, a friend of famous poets, a writer, a bankrupt, a jailbird, a farmer, an African explorer - and many other manifestations - before, finally, he becomes a minor diplomat, a consul based in Trieste (then in Austria-Hungary) where he thinks he will see out the end of his days in well-deserved tranquillity. This will not come to pass