Colonel Francis Charteris, liar, cheat, rake and bully, was a man without a single redeeming feature; even his military rank was dubiously acquired. In the first half of the 18th Century his debauched way of life made him a nationally known figure. Alexander Pope ridiculed him in verse, William Hogarth portrayed him in The Harlot's Progress.
Cheating at cards and dice, refusing to pay his bills, forging documents were almost daily occurrences. But it was his insatiable lust for women - preferably well-built wenches from the lower classes - that made him so widely notorious and earns him this patchy biography.
In the early chapters Linda Stratmann recounts a series of scandalous encounters in no particular chronological order, admitting that many of them may be apocryphal but leaving no doubt that what they may lack in precise detail, the broad picture is true enough. Where the book holds the attention is in the central episode - Charteris's rape of a young servant girl, Anne Bond, and his subsequent arraignment at the Old Bailey. The remaining chapters, which deal extensively with contemporary writings for the page and the stage stretch the tale to 175 pages but may test the reader's perseverance.