Synopses & Reviews
These days hardly anyone remembers Augustus John Curthbert Hare (1834-1903). But in his prime, the late Victorian age, his name was on the lips of anyone who mattered. He was a travel writer, a storyteller and a memoirist of the first order, and his work is a fascinating record of a lost way of life amongst the strangest upper classes of English society.
Review
"How can you not like a memior entitled 'Peculiar People,' especially when its author proves no less peculiar than the assortment of English oddities he memorializes?"
-- Patricia T. O'Connor, New York Times Book Review
Review
"This is a charmingly illustrated volume ... Hare was probably a prig, a snob, and probably a crashing bore, but this book is riveting."
-- The New Yorker
Review
From Publishers WeeklyThis engrossing, one-volume autobiography of Victorian writer Augustus John Cuthbert Hare (1834-1903) has been edited by Miller, publisher of Academy Chicago, and Papp, a freelance writer, to retain the distinctive flavor of the original six-volume edition, published from 1896 to 1900. Hare dramatically recounts a childhood so horrible, it is amazing he survived. As an infant he was given away by his upper-class English parents to his Aunt Maria, who placed him for much of his early years in the care of an Uncle Julius and Aunt Esther, who starved and beat him. He finally escaped by attending Oxford and then, as a young man, traveled with and cared for Maria until her death. She repaid him by depriving him of his fortune. Until he reclaimed his estate, he made a living by writing travel guides. A born storyteller, Hare vividly describes his travels and the unusual people he met as well as shares his favorite supernatural tales. Illustrations.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
From Library JournalHare's autobiography first appeared between 1896 and 1900 in six volumes totaling some 750,000 words. Malcolm Barnes produced a handsome, two-volume abridgment (1952-53), unhappily out of print, but the work now resurfaces in further abridgment. What the Nation wrote in 1901 remains true: "For future students of the social life of England in Victoria's reign, Mr. Hare has written an invaluable memoir." Hare was related to-and apparently visited-half the English peerage and met most of the leading literary figures of the day. Well traveled and deeply read, he was a keen observer and recorder, with both pen and brush, of the upper-class circles in which he moved. He loved ghost stories, many of which are recounted here. Barnes's edition is more generous with text, illustrations, and notes; but the present volume is attractive and may lead its readers to learn more about a fascinating figure.
Joseph Rosenblum, Guilford Technical Community Coll., Jamestown, N.C.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Synopsis
These days hardly anyone remembers Augustus John Curthbert Hare (1834-1903). But in his prime, the late Victorian age, his name was on the lips of anyone who mattered. He was a travel writer, storyteller, and memoirist of the first order, and his work is a fascinating record of a lost way of life amongst the strangest upper classes of English society.
Hare's six-volume autobiography was published between 1899-1903 in England; Academy Chicago's one-volume condensation first appeared in hardcover in 1995. Walter Kendrick of the Voice Literary Supplement had this to say:
"Not only did Hare win dinner invitations from lords and ladies, poets and politicians; he also listened to stories told after too many glasses of wine. Hare delighted in those stories, which he tidied up and rendered coherent for inclusion in The Story of My Life."
"It's a delightful book, though its been out of print since the first edition and couldn't be reprinted in full now, being too huge and useless for our dimished age."
"But the marveously impractical Academy Chicago press has come up with the next best thing: a one-volume, relatively cheap condensation that culls the good stuff out of the bather, both of which Hare provided in plenty."
" ... the best way to read this bizarre book is simply to revel in the strangeness of a man who, like some improbale Amazon incest, could exist in no other time or place than precisely the hothouse that reared him, Victorian England."
Readers will also enjoy the many illustration by Hare, with additional whimisical drawings by Julia Anderson-Miller.
About the Author
Augustus John Cuthbert Hare (1834-1903) was a Victorian writer who had clung, so to speak, to the edges of fame. He was born into the maddest of upper-class English families and survived one of the cruelest of childhoods to write monumental travel guides to the Continent and a six-volume autobiography, The Story of My Life. That autobiography is now extremely rare and growing rarer - since every day copies of it, even in libraries, crumble into dust. This is a one-volume condensation of this remarkable work, containing what the editors consider to be the highlights of Augustus Hare's harrowing tale, beginning with his birth, shortly following which his lackadaisical parents gave him to a relative, assuring her that if she wanted more children she should let them know, because they had others.