TRELAWNY A Man's Life

The success of Fanny Kemble, Passionate Victorian will give this new biography a good start. And Trelawny was as dramatic and colorful and glamorous a figure in his way as she was in hers. He fits into that romantic rebel group, along with Byron and Shelley, whose commentator he was. He started life as a younger son of unpleasant parents, he was in hot water continually, and was finally sent to sea for discipline, he ran away and joined up with privateers, he married an Arab and was indirectly the cause of her tragic death; he was married again and divorced, played fast and loose with the ladies. He traveled on the Continent and in America, where he crossed Fanny Kemble's path (and would gladly have made it permanent). He came back to England and was in the thick of the Pre-Raphaelite coterie. He was a fascinating adventurer, with a gift for literature and for trouble. Good reading.