Not a bad review. However, it was a tad harsh in places. You really beat that idea of a  psychological analysis to bloody death. The poor man wrote a 500 page  biography (I checked this on amzon) not a Freudian deconstruction.

I have been in communication with the book's author and we agreed it would be a good idea to announce these two plays he is going to perform in NYC:


2 PLAYS…2 BOOKS…1 AUTHOR-ACTOR

Don’t miss the literary-theatrical highlight of Brits Off Broadway 2006

‘Author and actor Ian Kelly, think Dirk Bogarde or Sam Shepherd’ (The Times London) returns to New York with two major biographies, and two plays in which he stars.

As the highlight of the 3rd Brits Off Broadway Festival this May-July, author and actor Ian Kelly returns to New York with two hugely anticipated plays in rep: Beau Brummell and Cooking for Kings.

Beau Brummell
‘There are three great men of our age: myself, Napoleon and Beau Brummell, but of we three, the greatest of all is Brummell’
Lord Byron

Timed to coincide with both the Anglomania exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art Costume Institute and  the US publication of Kelly’s landmark new biography of Beau Brummell (Simon & Schuster Free Press, May 2006) Beau Brummell  is the New York premiere of the hit West End play about the life of the man who invented the suit and begat the cult of celebrity.

Already hailed in the British press as a ‘tour de force’ ‘magisterial’ ‘superlative’ ‘worthy of Balzac’ and described by Stephen Fry as ‘touched with mastery,’ Kelly’s new biography of Beau Brummell is already in production as a BBC film starring Ian Kelly, Hugh Bonneville and James Purefoy.  ‘A parable for modern times’ as one critic wrote, Brummell’s story was an 18th century rake’s progress, but also a harbinger of our own celebrity-obsessed culture. Hailed by Byron as more famous and important than Napoleon, Brummell changed forever the way men dress and behave, but also set a pattern of celebrity crash-and-burn that endures to this day.

A classic tale of a fallen star, Ron Hutchinson’s (A Rat in the Skull, Traffic) play was widely acclaimed in the West End. The role of Brummell is taken by the acclaimed actor and writer, Ian Kelly, a man uniquely placed to play the part, having spent two years researching the character.

Once the most famous and adored young man in London, Brummell still spends hours dressing in the hope anyone might call on him. A tragic-comedy of two men, Brummell and his valet, trapped in a mutually dependent dance of wit, regret and hidden longings.


‘Wit, taste, insolence, independence; Brummell’s philosophy of life. He stands for a symbol; his ghost walks amongst us still’ Virginia Woolf

‘Singularity is his vocation, excess his way to perfection’
Albert Camus

‘To put modern man into clean linen, pants and jacket ought to be enough to secure my fame’
Beau Brummell


A must-see for anyone interested in fashion, celebrity, vanity and the working of the urban male’s mind.

Here are what other authors are saying about Ian kelly's book on Beau Brummell:

Beau Brummell: The Ultimate Dandy Quote Sheet

“Ian Kelly’s magisterial, utterly gripping life of George “Beau” Brummell is parable for modern times. Kelly sets out the arena deftly, with a vivid evocation of Georgian London and elegantly charts the tale of this fashion icon. .”
–    Philip Hoare, Independent

"(A) wonderful biography. . . Is he (Brummell) worth such a plump biography? The answer has to be yes, since nearly every page of the first half tells us something intriguing about late-Georgian society, while the second half conjures up an image of the decayed dandy in exile worthy of Balzac . .. A photograph of the author suggests that he possesses Brummellesque good looks is also an unusually sharp and sophisticated writer." – Damian Thompson, Mail on Sunday

“A superlative book. . . Kelly has produced a thoughtful, absorbing and hugely diverting book. Lushly illustrated, carefully researched and argued, this biography will entertain and enlighten anyone who wants to understand why dandyism, then as today, is a peculiarly English phenomenon.” - George Walden, Daily Mail

"Ian Kelly has written a splendid book about this seminal figure of the early 19th Century. 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, The Sunday Times

"Hugely entertaining. . . The reader will want neither the book, not the intriguing life it recreates, to come to an end." -  Melanie Read, Herald

"A wonderful melange of social history and biography. . . Ian Kelly, in this vibrant, witty and fact-packed book has produced something of a tour de force out of what might have appeared a flimsy or frivolous life. The pathos of the later years is almost unbearable, the details of prison life done in a style almost as arresting as the man himself." - Claire Harman, Sunday Telegraph

"This is a finely written and beautifully illustrated book which does credit to the extraordinary life, times and legacy of its subject." - Frances Wilson, Literary Review

"This is the only book you need to read if you want to know the whole truth about Brummell." - James Chambers, Telegraph

"You really must read Beau Brummell: The Ultimate Dandy." - The Sunday Times

"If you want to understand modern celebrity read this book. It is also, quite possibly the best book ever written on London " - Boyd Hilton, Radio 5

In Dec. or Jan., the Times Literary Supplement (a review that is widely recognized as the most
prestigious review of books published in English and maybe in the world) reviewed Kelly's book. 
The review wasn't very flattering but as I recall that had more to do with the reviewer rightly (to my mind) finding Brummel pretty vacant.  The review's worth finding and reading.

Well I think FNB certainly has exhaustively covered this book and author's review.

Manton's text had a populist edge to it, with exclamation marks and other attention grabbing elements, which I suppose is appropriate for a non-scholarly periodical.

Last edited by Incroyable (2006-05-07 20:17:43)

Here's the review from the Times (London).  I could've sworn that the TLS had a separate review.  But maybe it was only in print. 
Unfortunately, I must've thrown out my older issues.  I can't find it or a version on-line.
----------------------------------------------------------

The Sunday Times    October 09, 2005

Beau Brummell by Ian Kelly
REVIEWED BY COLIN MCDOWELL

BEAU BRUMMELL: The Ultimate Dandy
by Ian Kelly

Hodder £20 pp578

Beau Brummell was the model for the modern celeb, a man famous for being famous. A complex mix, he was part Kate Moss (for all his faults, he was adored by society), part David Beckham (obsessed with his appearance, he lived for shopping) and a lot like those flashy City boys who vie to run up the biggest bill in nightclubs. He would have been entirely at home in modern London, where money talks, because Regency London was all about money, too.

Ian Kelly has written a splendid book about this seminal figure of the early 19th century, the person whom Byron bracketed with himself and Napoleon as the most important men of his age — and placed before both of them. 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.

Regency England was, for the rich and socially eager, a pre-run of today. Everything was centred on London, the wealthiest city in the kingdom. Full of arrivistes and the new rich for whom desperate consumption was a proof of being, its secret world (secret, that is, to all not admitted to the charmed circles of the West End) revolved around sex and gambling. Again, like today’s, its doings were chronicled by an irreverent, iconoclastic press eager for celebrity gossip and social scandal.

This rumbustious and self-indulgent era is the background for what Kelly describes as a modern rake’s progress, taking Brummell from schooldays, via unrivalled influence as the leader of the cult of the dandy, to disgrace, exile, madness and death. From society’s darling to yesterday’s man didn’t take long. Brummell first met the Prince of Wales (who made his rapid advance in society possible) around 1793. The same prince pulled the rug from under Brummell at the height of his fame in 1814, as a result of Brummell’s infamous “Who’s your fat friend?” remark. The man who felt he could do no wrong in the eyes of London society was finished from that moment, shunned by the sycophants who would do nothing to help a friend rejected by the Regent.

For all his huge success with the ladies, George Brummell was the sort of man with whom other men wanted to be associated. His popularity was apparent early at Eton, where he was given the nickname Buck, which, as the author points out, was a common term for “sexually licentious Londoners”. Kelly assumes Brummell’s early sexual education was with the ladies of the town, without dismissing the possibility of homosexual affairs in that strange establishment, notorious at the time for “sodomy, flogging and fagging”. Whichever way he swung, Brummell’s popularity was clearly based on the fact that he was a born leader, a breed that can get away with much.

While he was still at Eton, his father died, leaving him £20,000 (around £1.6m in today’s money). Thus armed, Brummell moved into society, after a brief and unimpressive period at Oxford. Known even at school as a cheeky lad, famed for his lightning repartee, Brummell charmed the Prince Regent, an overdressed, overblown fashion disaster, and landed a commission in the prestigious Prince of Wales’s Own Regiment of Light Dragoons. The rest is well documented. On the back of his friendship with the Prince Regent, Brummell (who had now been affectionately nicknamed Beau by adoring society) could give full rein to his attention seeking. His winningly youthful cockiness was slowly eroded and he became increasingly affected and arrogant. His quick wit, always dismissive and usually cruel, must have made him as feared as he was loved.

By mid-career, he was a narcissistic, dandiacal poseur, although Kelly finds it hard to see him as such. This is the flaw in this book. Not only does Kelly treat Brummell indulgently, he does little to analyse and illuminate the character of a man who, for all his braggadocio, must be considered pathetic when placed against other leading figures of the age. Surely, a man who spent a fortune on shopping, whoring (possibly with both sexes) and gambling, who left nothing more substantial than a few aphorisms the veracity of which is impossible to ascertain, and who had an impossibly affected approach to dress, demands a more rigorous psychological examination?

A symbol of the new social order that Sheridan called The Age of Surfaces (pace present-day celeb-social life), and considered by Lady Hester Stanhope to be the cleverest man in London, Brummell ended his days in Caen in France, where he lived on handouts from Palmerston’s government, limiting himself to one complete change of linen per day and slowly sinking into derangement. He died in 1840, of tertiary syphilis, a victim of his personality and the times in which he lived.

Brummell’s story should have ended there, in the obscurity of northern France. But it didn’t.

And this is what gives him a small claim to greatness. The flame he lit was kept by hero worship. His votaries were men who wished to emulate the smoke screen behind which he attempted to hide his inadequacies. He was made into a legend and idolised far beyond the importance of his achievement. How did this happen? Largely, and strangely, through literature. Captain Jesse’s huge biography appeared four years after Brummell’s death, as did Barbey D’Aurevilly’s examination of Brummell’s influence. Captain Gronow’s Reminiscences were published almost 20 years later. But the works that really created the legend in the Victorian mind were two novels — Pelham by Bulwer Lytton and Granby by TH Lister, both of which were compulsive reading in that snobby, upwardly mobile society. For me, the most trenchant remark on the whole Brummell phenomenon is in Pierce Egan’s Life in London of 1820, in which he points out: “The dandy . . . was got by Vanity . . . out of Affectation.” It is a telling comment on the man who elevated dandyism to the level not only of a fetish but almost to madness.

LITTLE CHARMER

Brummell gained the attention of London society very early in life, when he and his elder brother sat for a portrait, above, by Reynolds. The painting was shown in 1783 at the Royal Academy Exhibition, to great acclaim. Brummell was just five at the time.

Available at the Books First price of £18 on 0870 165 8585 and www.timesonline.co.uk/booksfirst