The ScandalMonger

From his further explorations of the Age of Scandal, T. H. White has returned with some remarkable specimens. The eccentrics among them are hardly more conspicuous than the men and women who, at this distance, seem representative of the eighteenth century. They had no, or few, inhibitions. At work or play, in debt or in love, they expended a vitality which we should find it hard to match. Mr. White exhibits them at their best and their worst. His subjects include Duels, Dogs, Public Executions, Blue Stockings, Bribery and Corruption; his personages Horace Walpole, George Selwyn, Beau Brummel, the Chevalier d’Eon, Fanny Burney, Mary Shelley, Mrs. Thrale . . .

If White’s earlier book could be described as a “chronicle of humorous and shocking scandal” (John Betjeman) what shall be said of this continuation of it? What can be said — except that it will not disappoint those many readers who relished the flavour of The Age of Scandal.