Beau Brummell: The Ultimate Man of Style

· 書商:Simon and Schuster
電子書
384
符合資格

關於本電子書

"If people turn to look at you in the street, you are not well dressed, but either too stiff, too tight, or too fashionable."

-- Beau Brummell


Long before tabloids and television, Beau Brummell was the first person famous for being famous, the male socialite of his time, the first metrosexual -- 200 years before the word was conceived. His name has become synonymous with wit, profligacy, fine tailoring, and fashion. A style pundit, Brummell was singly responsible for changing forever the way men dress -- inventing, in effect, the suit.

Brummell cut a dramatic swath through British society, from his early years as a favorite of the Prince of Wales and an arbiter of taste in the Age of Elegance, to his precipitous fall into poverty, incarceration, and madness. Brummell created the blueprint for celebrity crash and burn, falling dramatically out of favor and spending his last years in a hellish asylum. For nearly two decades, Brummell ruled over the tastes and pursuits of the well heeled and influential, and for almost as long, lived in penury and exile.

With vivid prose, critically acclaimed biographer Ian Kelly unlocks the glittering, turbulent world of late-eighteenth/early-nineteenth-century London -- the first truly modern metropolis: venal, fashion-and-celebrity obsessed, self-centered and self-doubting -- through the life of one of its greatest heroes and most tragic victims. Brummell personified London's West End, where a new style of masculinity and modern men's fashion were first defined.

Brummell was the leading Casanova and elusive bachelor of his time, appealing to both men and women of his society. The man Lord Byron once claimed was more important than Napoleon, Brummell was the ultimate cosmopolitan man. "Toyboy" to Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, and leader of playboys including the eventual king of England, Brummell inspired Pushkin to write Eugene Onegin, and Byron to write Don Juan, and he influenced others from Oscar Wilde to Coco Chanel.

Through love letters, historical records, and poems, Kelly reveals the man inside the suit, unlocking the scandalous behavior of London's high society while illuminating Brummell's enigmatic life in the colorful, tumultuous West End. A rare rendering of an era filled with excess, scandal, promiscuity, opulence, and luxury, Beau Brummell is the first comprehensive view of an elegant and ultimately tragic figure whose influence continues to this day.

關於作者

Ian Kelly is an actor and writer. He lives in London with his wife, Claire, and son, Oscar. His first book, Cooking for Kings: A Life of Antonin Carême, the First Celebrity Chef, was published in 2003.

為這本電子書評分

歡迎提供意見。

閱讀資訊

智慧型手機與平板電腦
只要安裝 Google Play 圖書應用程式 Android 版iPad/iPhone 版,不僅應用程式內容會自動與你的帳戶保持同步,還能讓你隨時隨地上網或離線閱讀。
筆記型電腦和電腦
你可以使用電腦的網路瀏覽器聆聽你在 Google Play 購買的有聲書。
電子書閱讀器與其他裝置
如要在 Kobo 電子閱讀器這類電子書裝置上閱覽書籍,必須將檔案下載並傳輸到該裝置上。請按照說明中心的詳細操作說明,將檔案傳輸到支援的電子閱讀器上。