'Though scarcely Ten years old I had made a mortal enemy and
enjoyed the tender caresses of the opposite sex'. A line from the
beginning of an account of his life's adventures that the self
styled 3rd Viscount Basham addresses to the Duke of Wellington in
an attempt to back-up a claim that the Duke is under an obligation
to him. This hilarious tale is the sobject of Julian Rathbone's
picaresque novel - fiction so skilfully woven with historical fact
that we almost believe that Joseph 'Viscount Bosham', born of a
half English catholic priest and an Italian brothel keeper in the
turbulent Spain of the Peninsula Wars, is a historical figure.
Linguist, courier, pimp and mercenary Jo survives on his wits
turning battles, brothels and witchcraft to his own advantage,
although he suffers appalling setbacks in the process. An inventive
and entertaining romp across an admirably researched historical
canvas that was shortlisted for the Booker Prize in 1979. Now
published for the first time in paperback. (Kirkus UK)
Spain - 1808 to 1813 - where Revolution collides with Reaction, a British Army with a French; the Spain of Goya, where ignorant armies clash and from under them all comes the voice of Joseph: by birth European, by education enlightened, and living in Salamanca which suffered a new invasion every six months and saw one of Wellington's greatest battles. From the moment in early childhood when Joseph hurls a stone at a playmate and makes an evil enemy for life, to the last page when he climbs a hill in North Spain accompanied by a donkey, a giantess, and a new-born babe, and blunders into a battle, he takes the reader by the elbow and hurries him 'will he or will he not' across the terrible years that saw the birth of our own times.
Racy, picaresque, but with an underlying seriousness, JOSEPH is a panoramic novel of the Spanish Penisular War, revealing as Goya did its grotesqueries and ironies as well as its horrifying waste of life. Rathbone's wit, sensitivity and confident grasp of the subject are superbly matched to this brilliant historical scene.
JOSEPH has never before been published in paperback.
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