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Algernon Charles Swinburne, scandalous poet of the mid 1860s whose verses riveted and appalled London, recalls his extraordinary life from the safety of his captivity in Putney under the guardianship of the sinister lawyer and Pre-Raphaelite groupie, Theodore Watts Dunton. His journals find their way into the hands of the critic Edmund Gosse who provides his own surprising perspective on events as Swinburne’s bizarre and sinister relationship with the Pre-Raphaelite painter, Simeon Solomon unfolds. The scene moves from country house to the studios of the Pre- Raphaelites, to France, and back to the underbelly of aristocratic London life, with its involvement in illicit homosexuality, flagellation brothels, sadomasochism, drugs, and even bestiality; anything and everything seethes beneath the ‘respectability’ of Victorian England. This hilarious novel provides a penetrating insight into the seamy side of the nineteenth century and the life of its most extraordinary and shocking poet.
Anthea Ingham’s last novel, ‘Digby Sherwood’ (2013) took a wry look at the comic and tragic events in the life of a major public school in the nineteen eighties. Her previous novel, ‘Sebastian’s Tangibles’ explored an extraordinary gay love affair between a middle aged Oxford don and his fatally fascinating student.
Anthea has recently completed a doctorate on the poets Sappho and Swinburne. She has five children and lives near the Elan Valley in Wales.
