Immortal Dinner: A Famous Evening of Genius and Laughter in Literary London, 1817
Author: Penelope Hughes Hallett
In 1817 the eccentric history painter B.R. Haydon gave a famous dinner party. The occasion was significant as an encounter between the first and second generations of the Romantic poets, and it provides a vivid and fascinating glimpse into the lives and thoughts of this particular group at a crucial turning point in English society.
Sunday Telegraph - Charles Osborne
Sheer delight.
Wall Street Journal
Interesting...many excellent illustrations.
Independent - Mark Bostridge
A book of great charm.... .... Hughes-Hallett allows us to savor all the ingredients of a very special event.
Atlantic Monthly
Discursive and lively.
San Francisco Chronicle
Remarkable...Hughes-Hallett transcends the gimmick and enters the realm of the profound.
Publishers Weekly
A single dinner, attended 185 years ago by such literary luminaries as William Wordsworth, John Keats and Charles Lamb, no matter how brilliant the conversation, may not seem a sufficient subject for a book of 300 pages but it is in Hughes-Hallett's hands. The host to the evening, painter B.R. Haydon, had an agenda in putting together the dinner: he wanted to show off his progress on the monumental painting Christ's Entry into Jerusalem. Hughes-Hallet's (Home at Grasmere: The Wordsworths and the Lakes) main source for what transpired is Haydon's diary, which put a grandiose, self-congratulatory spin on the evening. The author takes Haydon's hyperbolic lead, portraying the dinner as a pivotal cultural event of the early 19th century. Far more interesting than the dinner itself, though, is Hughes-Hallett's vivid narrative of life in literary London in 1817. Combining exhaustive research and bold extrapolation, the author frequently digresses on the customs and culture of the day, material that ultimately supplies the meat of this account. Each member of the dinner party is honored with a biography, some of which is emotionally engaging (the tragic history of the Keats family's delicate health) and some not (the gratuitous sortie into how medical schools procured cadavers). Conveyed in a style both erudite and playful, Hughes-Hallett's account is noteworthy for the delicious inside peek it gives readers into the lives of these 19th-century celebrities. Using the dinner as a touchstone, Hughes-Hallett ultimately does convey to the reader the immortal qualities of those present in London on that late December evening in 1817. 75 b&w illus., 2 maps. (Sept. 6) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
Library Journal
Early in December 1817, the avant-garde painter Benjamin Robert Haydon moved into new lodgings in London that included a luxurious new painting studio. To celebrate the splendor of his new surroundings and to show off his glorious new painting, Christ's Entry into Jerusalem, Haydon invited London's reigning literary and scientific lights to dinner and tea. Thus, on December 28, 1817, Haydon held what he referred to in his journals as his "immortal dinner," where Wordsworth, Keats, Charles Lamb, surgeon Joseph Ritchie, engraver John Landseer, and Mary Wordsworth's cousin Tom Monkhouse recited poetry and ranged over topics from Shakespeare to science. In exhaustive detail, Hughes-Hallett (Home at Grasmere: The Wordsworths and the Lakes) chronicles the conversations and personalities of this delightful evening. She traces the routes each person would have walked to the party and moves beyond the actual event to sketch the later lives of the guests. Hughes-Hallett's loving portrait of this small dinner party is a microcosm of the larger political, economic, and social context of the early 19th century in which Romantic views of art and the artist were evolving. Yet because her cultural study involves a small circle of friends engaging in an isolated, albeit interesting, incident, the book is recommended primarily for large public libraries.-Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Lancaster, PA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.
What People Are Saying
The Historian
...This book is an enjoyable read and is certain to make readers want to know more about the many topics discussed.
Gastronomica
...Hughes-Hallett gives us a complex and fascinating portrait of a specific party and, at the same time, of a culture and an age.
WALL STREET JOURNAL
Interesting...many excellent illustrations.
JONATHAN BATE
Wonderfully evocative...splendidly readable.
MARK BOSTRIDGE
A book of great charm....Hughes-Hallett allows us to savor all the ingredients of a very special event.
—INDEPENDENT
CHARLES OSBORNE
Sheer delight.
—SUNDAY TELEGRAPH
Jonathan Bate
Wonderfully evocative...splendidly readable.
See also: Working Longer or Presidents Most Wanted
Book of Smoothies, Juices, and Shakes
Author: Kathryn Hawkins
A delicious treat? Or a nutrition-packed meal?
In the past few years, smoothies have become the treat-and meal replacement-of choice for health-conscious people. To fire up the imagination, The Book of Smoothies, Juices, and Shakes has 80 recipes for a variety of satisfying drinks.
- Quick, easy, and perfect for the on-the-go lifestyle
- Perhaps the single most delicious way to get one's nutrients
- Full of easy-to-find ingredients
- Low-fat, high-flavor nutrition, with or without dairy
Author Biography: Kathryn Hawkins is a writer and home economist and the former cooking editor of Women's Own. She is the author of several books, including The Book of Light Chinese Dishes and Claypot Cookery.
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