The Most Beautiful Man in Existence: The Scandalous Life of Alexander Lesassier (Hardcover) (ISBN-13: 9780812234862)

1833, Catherine Jane Hamilton returned from India to Edinburgh to seek a divorce from her husband, the physician Alexander Lesassier. The charge was adultery, and proof for it lay in a trunk containing her husband's personal papers. Catherine won her suit without difficulty and the trunk was deposited in the library of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. Alexander Lesassier died in 1839 during the First Afghan War; his trunk and its contents remained untouched for the next century and a half.

It has now been opened and a remarkable tale, told in remarkable detail, has spilled forth. The life of Alexander Lesassier, as expertly reconstructed by Lisa Rosner, affords startling insight into the sensibilities of an era and of the man who, in his own eyes and those of the women who adored him, was its most perfect creation.

Affable and self-absorbed, engaging and ignoble Lesassier was a physician, military surgeon, and novelist, who was also a shameless opportunist, charming scoundrel, seducer, and survivor. His is the story of a failed medical man who wanted to be something different and saw himself as entitled to more than he had; someone who can always be guaranteed to make the wrong choice, and then protest that he has done well.

This fascinating and deeply absorbing book offers rare insights into Georgian, Regency, and early Victorian Britain through the fortunes and misfortunes, hopes and whims, of "the most beautiful man in existence."

Author: Lisa Rosner
ISBN-10: 0812234863
ISBN-13: 9780812234862
Publisher: University of Pennsylvania Press
Language: English
Published: 06/03/1999
Pages: 288
Format: Hardcover
Weight: 1.35lbs
Size: 9.10h x 6.20w x 1.10d

Review Citation(s):
Library Journal 04/15/1999 pg. 108
Univ PR Books for Public Libry 01/01/2000 pg. 55 - Strongly Recommended