Beau Brummell: The Ultimate Man of Style

411 Pages·2006·21.041 MB·English

by  Ian Kelly

U.S. $26.00
"If people turn to look at you in the street,
you a~e 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 arbiteroftaste in the Age of Elegance,
to his precipitous fall into poverty, incarceration,
and madness. Brummell created the blueprint for
celebrity crash and bum, falling dramatically out of
favor and spending his last years in a hellish asy
lum. For nearly two decades, Brummell ruled over
the tastes and pursuits of the well heeled and influen
tial, and for almost as long, lived in penury and exile.
With vivid prose, critically acclaimed biogra
pher Ian Kelly unlocks the glittering, turbulent world
of late-eighteenth/early-nineteenth-century Lon
don-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.
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"Toyboy·• 19' Qeo;gi~a, Duchess of Devonshire, and
leader of playboys including the eventual king of
England, Brummell inspired Pushkin to write
Eugene Onegin, and Byron to writcDonllllm, and he
influenced others l'rom Oscar Wilde to Coco Chanel.
llirough love letters. historical records, and
poems, Kelly reveals the man inside the suit,
unlocking the scandalous behavior of London's
high society while illuminating Hrummell's enig
matic life in the colorful, tumultuous West End, A
rare rendering of an era filled with excess, scandal,
promiscui1y, opulence, and luxury, Beau Brummell
is the first comprehensive view of an elegant and
ultimately tragic figure whose influence continues
to this day,
JA:J ]\ELLY is an actor and writer. He lives in
London with his wife. Claire, and son, O.scar, His first
book, Cooking/or Kings: The life ojAnronin Careme,
the FirJI Celebrity Chef, was published in 2003
Registrr online at www.sim,.nsa1·s.cmn for more
information on fhisandother GTCatbooks.
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Also by Ian Kelly
Cooking for Kings:
The Life of Antonin Careme, the First Celebrity Chef
BEAU
BRUMMELL
XAN KEJLJLY
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Copyright © 2006 by Ian Kelly
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Manufactured in the United States of America
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
is available.
ISBN-13: 978-0-7432-7089-2
ISBN-10: 0-7432-7089-4
For Oscar
Much more than the cult of the individual, Romanticism
inaugurated the cult of the personality.
Albert Camus
Contents
Author's Note Xl
Prologue Xlll
Introduction 1
PART ONE: ASCENDANCY
1778-1799
1. Blessed Are the Placemakers, 1778-1786 23
2. These Are Not Childish Things: Eton, 1786-1793 33
3. The World Is Very Uncharitable, 1793-1794 43
4. The Prince's Own, 1794-1799 55
PART TWO: A DAY IN THE HIGH LIFE
1799-1816
Morning
5. Dandiacal Body 91
6. Sic Itur Ad Astra: Shopping in London 109
Afternoon
7. The Ladies Who Ride 129
8. The Dandy Clubs 149
Evening
9. Theatre Royal 165
10. Seventh Heaven of the Fashionable World 179
IX
CONTENTS
11. No More A-roving So Late into the Night 192
The End of the Day
12. Play Has Been the Ruin of Us All 215
PART THREE: A MAN OF FASHION,
GONE TO THE CONTINENT
1816-1840
13. Roi de Calais, 1816-1821 229
14. Male and Female Costume and Other Works, 1821-1830 242
15. His Britannic Majesty's Consul, 1830-1832 263
16. Hotel d'Angleterre, 1832-1835 279
17. Prison, 1835-1839 286
18. Asylum, 1839-1840 303
Notes on Sources 313
Bibliography 345
Appendix: Chapter Title Illustrations 363
Picture Acknowledgments 369
Acknowledgments 371
Index 377
X