- Paperback: 352 pages
- Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd; New edition edition (27 Sep 2001)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0140273697
- ISBN-13: 978-0140273694
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 12.8 x 2.4 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 210,904 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Product Description
Review
'The biographical equivalent of a world in a grain of sand... [an] erudite account of a wonderful evening' - Peter Ackroyd
Product Description
This text celebrates this unique gathering, setting it against a backdrop of change, reflected in the preoccupations of the diners as they sat on that memorable winter's evening drinking toasts, and expatiating on their deepest convictions. This was a time when the contemporary world of literary London society was to be seen at its extraordinary gifted best. The Elgin Marbles controversy still raged; Mrs Siddons performed Lady Macbeth in her drawing room to a distinguished audience; Humphry Davy, great electro-chemist, composed passable verse, and Joseph Ritchie, young physician and would-be poet, prepared to explore the river Niger with a copy of Keats' "Endymion" in his pocket. A compelling and immediate picture emerges of these rare spirits, much of it in their own words, taken from their letters and diaries and those of their friends. The author takes us straight into the rich world of the immortal dinner and reveals gusts who are not merely figures from history, but are startlingly modern, earthly and sympathetic.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
If you have ever played the game, Who I Would Invite to My Imaginary Dinner Party, this would be a winning table, save for the non-appearance of J S Bach who could not be there due to time constraints. This book gives a sense of the excitement, adventure and debate of the time though the eyes of some of the most enduring characters of the age. There are touching details of the privations of some of their lives, particulary Chas and Mary Lamb, and a real picture of how they lived, dined and worked. Its a wonderfully humbling tome for those who tend to think that anything witty was invented in the 60s! Deserves to be read with a glass of port.
Format:Hardcover
The subject matter of this book, the Romantic period in England, is clearly one of the most fascinating in all our history, so it was with a strange deflation that I finally put the work aside. Yes, the times were alive with interest and innovation, and, Yes, not a few of the guests at this celebrated get-together must have been rivetting, enthralling company, but somehow the book never really manages to convey the fullness of experience. Not for me, anyway. The author intends the gathering to be an epitome of the age in letters, lives, the arts and sciences, using it as the jump-off point to explore the wider waters of all these heady subjects and their practitioners. So, what may be imagined by the title as a listening-in on one night of brilliant converse and entertainment quickly becomes an accountant-like recitation of social history: okay as it goes but not likely to leave the reader breathless for more. In fact, the best bits of the book are to be found in the poets' own words (Haydon and Lamb, especially), quoted here in extenso. And my guess is that if you already have an interest in the period you will have probably read those by now, anyway. Having said that, for the general reader seeking an overview it will prove more than useful. It is odd, though, that after 300 pages the said Immortal Dinner remains so poorly realized.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4 reviews
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Wonderful!
5 Mar 2003
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
On 28 December 1817, London painter Benjamin Robert Haydon gave a dinner party that he meticulously recounted in his journal. He called it "The Immortal Dinner" because the guest list, tone of conversation, wit and good time had by all fulfilled his vision of a good life lived at the forefront of high culture. The title could have lived on as a conceit in a footnote, except for Penelope Hughes-Hallet's resurrection of it and the event as a lens through which to view close-up the lifestyle, major players, watershed historical events and zeigeist of the era. This is an original approach to this kind of history, and while it does not necessarily reveal any startlingly new information, it refreshes it, making it vivid and accessible. Hughes-Hallet has a way with ordering her information, as well as a fluent writing style, and the result is a very enjoyable read. Haydon is a memorable character, a person of some talent and vision, whose ego, bad timing and money management woes blunted so many would-be successes. While he made enemies, he also made good friends, and his dinner companions included John Keats, Charles Lamb and William Wordsworth. Though all the characters are well developed, it is Wordsworth who quietly forms a keystone, much as he did in the quintet of major Romantic poets, throughout the book, the elder statesman who long outlives them all. I wish this had been around when I was taking British Romantic Lit in college; it would have made excellent sidebar reading.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Keats as "Delphian Priestess" (!?)
19 Jan 2010
Format:Hardcover
The Immortal Dinner was an entertaining and yet informative read. A broad reaching expose of the personalities who attended "The Immortal Dinner", we get to meet them before and after the event, as well as various asides with other important people of the day. I had no idea that Charles Lamb was so interesting- I feel compelled to find other material on him alone. It is obvious that the author felt a strong connection to these men, and attempted to undo some perceptions that posterity has left us. Keats described as "athletic...extraordinarily broad shouldered...Delphian priestess.." Huh. Haydon's self absorbed certainty of immortality due to his painting of Christ's entry into Jerusalem was sadly unrealized, made more profound by having the enormous work loom over the guests during the famed dinner. A thoroughly researched and enjoyable account. I highly recommend it.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful
Entertaining, lightweight fun, especially for Anglophiles
13 April 2004
Format:Hardcover
Congratulations to Penelope Hughes-Hallett for coming up with a novel way to put together a book of historical subjects and reference--by narrowing her focus to one particular dinner, and the people who came to it, she can actually find more insight and give us a broader picture of her multiple subjects than if her canvas, like one of Haydon's, was big across as the River Thames. Haydon emerges as a provocative, vain, loveable and talented man with an incorrigbly high opinion of himself, a sort of rogue, but a heroic Englishman in the best sense. As other reviewers have noted, William Wordsworth--not usually a sparkplug of fun or dynamism--comes off terrifically well, perhaps he was a man at his best with a tableful of male peers and far away from the women who perplexed him so. I hope other cultural historians pick up on Hughes-Hallett's "meal" method and soon, perhaps, we will have an "Immortal Lunch" or "Breakfast" too.
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