The Romantic

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The Romantic

By: William Boyd

Narrated by: Kobna Holbrook-Smith

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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

Soldier. Farmer. Felon. Writer. Father. Lover.
One man, many lives.

Born in 1799, Cashel Greville Ross experiences myriad lives: joyous and devastating, years of luck and unexpected loss. Moving from County Cork to London, from Waterloo to Zanzibar, Cashel seeks his fortune across continents in war and in peace. He faces a terrible moral choice in a village in Sri Lanka as part of the East Indian Army. He enters the world of the Romantic Poets in Pisa. In Ravenna he meets a woman who will live in his heart for the rest of his days. As he travels the world as a soldier, a farmer, a felon, a writer, a father, a lover, he experiences all the vicissitudes of life and, through the accelerating turbulence of the nineteenth century, he discovers who he truly is. This is the romance of life itself, and the beating heart of The Romantic.

From one of Britain's best-loved and bestselling writers comes an intimate yet panoramic novel set across the nineteenth century.

***PRAISE FOR WILLIAM BOYD***

'There are few reading pleasures as great as giving in to a William Boyd Novel' Sunday Times

'One of our best contemporary storytellers' Spectator

'Simply the best realistic storyteller of his generation' Sebastian Faulks

© William Boyd 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

William BoydKobna Holbrook-SmithPenguin

20th Century

Genre Fiction

Historical

Historical Fiction

Literary Fiction

Literature & Fiction

Romance

Fiction

Comedy

Heartfelt

20th Century Genre Fiction Historical Historical Fiction Literary Fiction Literature & Fiction Romance Fiction Comedy Heartfelt

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Critic reviews

The Romantic by William Boyd was the novel I enjoyed most this year. It's incredibly ambitious, its hero moving from Co Cork to London, then from Waterloo to Zanzibar, and at one point even joining the East Indian Army, but it was such an easy, indulgent read (Sathnam Sanghera)

[One of the] most enjoyable new novels I read this year . . . [it] offers deep pleasure to those who love novels, instruction to anyone setting out to write one (Allan Massie)

Boyd is as magically readable as ever, and, as always with his whole life novels, there is an invigorating air of spontaneity

William Boyd's The Romantic is disguised a an historical biography - The Real Life of Cashel Greville Ross - but is actually an utterly engrossing adventure story . . . Cashel, we understand, is searching for himself, but in the process he provides romance, entertainment and enlightenment for his readers. How better to spend the relaxed days around Xmas than following his footsteps (Antonia Fraser)

Storytelling is what floats my boat and William Boyd's The Romantic, a return to his "whole-life" novels, has it in spades. Following our hero Cashel Greville Ross (Boyd is big on names) from Ireland to the Battle of Waterloo, then India, Italy, New England, Africa and beyond, it has enough engrossing variety to fill several books, not just the one (Peter Brookes)

Cashel ultimately emerges as a one-off - an inimitable character, whether he knows it or not . . . what is often lost behind the sheer pleasure brought by [Boyd's] books is their layered Chekhovian subtleties: Boyd is abundantly talented at capturing life's disconnections . . . it is intoxicating to be in the company of a writer who seems to be having such fun

William Boyd's new novel is one of his best

A rambunctious, swashbuckling tale, told with panache by a master storyteller . . . Those who fall in love with The Romantic may wonder whether their own lives lack adventure. Surrender to this fine novel's spell, though, and it will vicariously supply more than enough thrills for anyone

Boyd's back, baby. The great writer of big, splashy (mostly) historical adventures has gone all guns blazing on this one . . . The pages brim with famous names and exotic locations - with Florentine palazzos, debtors' prisons, scandalous love affairs, Byron and the Battle of Waterloo . . . pure, joyful escapism

If it's true escapism you're after, William Boyd can always be relied upon to transport the reader from reality and his next offering, The Romantic, another epic that follows Cashel Greville Ross from 19th-century Country Cork to Zanzibar via Oxford and Sri Lanka, offers a wonderful literary getaway as the nights draw in

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Terrible narrator. Either that or the punctuation was rubbish. Shame. I finished it but towards the end my patience with the halting narration was stretched.