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Thomas Hope |
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Triumph, Tragedy: Obverse Worlds Towards Background and Meaning A Study of the Beechey Portrait Sandor Baumgarten, Hope's Forgotten Champion |
Here is the book that took the world by storm, and then was lost. Thomas Hope (1769-1831) was descended from a family of Scottish bankers who resided in Holland. When hostile French Revolutionary troops occupied Amsterdam in 1795, the wealthy mercantile aristocrats relocated to London. Rather than enter the family business, this free-thinking young man of the Enlightenment used his enormous wealth to finance an eight year journey across Europe, Asia Minor and Africa. Neither missionary nor imperialist, rather an insightful traveller wise beyond his years, the cultural explorer initially recorded his impressions in more than 300 museum quality drawings. Upon returning to England, fate appeared to have defined Hope’s life in a conventional, if gently artistic manner. He had married the daughter of a respected clergyman, fathered four sons, established a London home full of artistic treasures, authored celebrated works on costume and furniture and was, to all appearances, admired and respectable. Then his repressed soul reawakened with a furious and mysterious literary shout. In 1817 Hope began work on a book that was destined to astonish the West by lifting the curtain of ignorance which had encouraged enmity against the East. Yet this was no mere retracing of his earlier travels. In an unexpected move, Hope created an extraordinary narrator-hero who strode upon the stage and commanded the world’s attention. Anastasius was fearless, curious, cunning, ruthless, brave, and above all, sexy. Born the son of a respected Greek dragoman, the hero of Hope’s book converted to Islam early on, a move which allowed the renamed Selim to take the reader along as he journeyed deep into the vast and dangerous Ottoman Empire. The Turkish Sultan ruled a kingdom in the late 1700s which stretched from Europe to the Indian Ocean. During the 35 years described in the book (1762–1798) the swashbuckling Anastasius/Selim infiltrated the deadly Wahhabis in Arabia, rode to war with the Mamelukes in Egypt and sailed the Mediterranean with the Turks. He was imprisoned, shipwrecked and hunted. He embraced lovers, killed enemies and had his heart broken forever in Trieste. However Anastasius wasn’t The Three Musketeers in turbans, for in his effort to reveal the complexities of the Islamic world Hope discussed music, language, cuisine, religion, laws and literature in some of the most eloquently written English since Shakespeare. When completed in 1819, Anastasius was a work of such academic interest, raw excitement and descriptive power that the fabled London publisher, John Murray, released it. The first edition was an overnight sensation and the second sold out in twenty-four hours. Foreign editions quickly followed. Ironically, given Hope’s mild reputation, the authorship of the dashing Anastasius was at first mistakenly attributed to Lord Byron, who according to legend wept bitterly on reading it, saying he would have given his two most approved poems to have been the author of such an exceptional book. Thereafter a combination of tragic efforts undermined Hope’s splendid work. Even before his untimely death, skeptics continued to doubt that the polite expert on interior design could have penned so unorthodox a work. After the author’s demise, his family first embraced conservative values, then authorised the demolition of the writer’s legendary London home, dispersed his fabled art collection and distanced themselves from his Oriental masterpiece. Ultimately, though described as “one of the great books of the world,” and having influenced Thackeray, Twain and Melville, Hope’s magnum opus became a victim of the sanctimonious morality of the Victorian age, then fell into neglect. This remarkable new edition features all three volumes together for the first time. Plus, in a series of commissioned Appendices, an international team of academic experts have examined Hope’s life, political impact and artistic legacy, the latter being a ground-breaking investigation of the famous portrait of the author depicted as a noble of the Ottoman Empire. In accordance with its academic mission, the royalties of this new edition are being donated to the National Portrait Gallery. To have discovered this book in 1819 would have opened a portal into a forbidding part of the world which the average reader could never have expected to visit. Yet open the book today and Anastasius will once again weave his enchanting tale of travel, love and war, all the while demonstrating the human harmonies still linking East and West. Praise, then and now, for Thomas Hope’s masterpiece, Anastasius
To have been
the author of Anastasius, I would have given the two poems which brought
me the most glory.
Robin Hanbury-Tenison, author of The Oxford Book of Exploration, 2008.
Thomas Hope’s understanding and passionate interest in the east,
its mores, fashions and architecture, acquired during his own extensive travels
throughout the
Philip Hewat-Jaboor, Museum Consultant and expert on Interior Design, 2008.
I am passing a few days with Thomas Hope, one of the most extraordinary men in England and the author of Anastasius, a work of great merit…It is a vast pity that he cannot be persuaded to publish more. Washington Irving, author of Rip van Winkle, 1820.
The Long Riders' Guild Press are to be congratulated on republishing Anastasius - at once a classic travel narrative and a work of picaresque fiction. Its author, Thomas Hope painted a vivid portrait of the Ottoman Empire based upon his personal experience. First published in 1819, this book, one of the most important novels of the nineteenth century, should be much more widely read. Robert Irwin, author of For lust of knowing: the Orientalists and their enemies, 2008.
Surely James Bond had his roots in the dashing Anastasius who swashbuckled his way across the Ottoman Empire in the 1780s? This book is a literary treasure, as fresh today as any modern novel. What gives it power is that it comes from first hand; the harems, dangerous streets, deserts, galleys and prisons found in the world of the Agas and Mamelukes. All intimately known: all experienced. Thomas Hope was a writer of outstanding talent - leaving one to wonder about the double life he must have led to know the world of the Porte so intimately.” Jeremy James, author of The Byerley Turk, 2008.
The term "classic" may sometimes carry a sense of something unapproachable and cold - but Anastasius, a classic beyond question, is perhaps most remarkable for the compelling vitality of Hope's writing. The pace, the humour, the eye and ear for detail and character, and the story-teller's gift - one suspects that whether or not its influence is realised, it has touched so much that was to follow: whether it's the ne'er-do-well adventures of Macdonald Fraser's Flashman or, say, the wonderfully-observed and gently picaresque travel journals of Colin Thubron. John Moat, poet, author and Founder of the Arvon Foundation, 2008.
I had forgotten that Anastasius was originally a John Murray book, so the Introduction to the new Long Riders' Guild Press edition was most enlightening. I think it is marvellous that The Guild is reissuing this classic. John Murray, whose ancestor first published Anastasius, 2008.
As a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery, I was encouraged to learn that during the re-publication of Thomas Hope’s Anastasius an intense academic investigation of Sir William Beechey’s portrait revealed that the author was depicted wearing the regal robes of an Ottoman official. As a travel author myself, I welcome the long overdue re-issuance of this neglected classic. The donation by the publishers of the royalties to the National Portrait Gallery reflects the importance of this literary and artistic union. Sir Christopher Ondaatje, author of Woolf in Ceylon, 2008.
The author of Anastasius has described the manners and vices of the Eastern Nations with fidelity and humour. Sir Walter Scott, author of Ivanhoe, 1820.
There are few books in the English language which contain passages of greater power, feeling and eloquence than Anastasius….Thomas Hope’s descriptions reveal a depth of sentiment and a vigour of imagination which Lord Byron could not excel. Reverend Sydney Smith, Chairman of the Edinburgh Review, 1820. Hardback — 7” x 10” 592 pages ISBN 1590482824 — £55 You can order a
copy of this astonishing book from your local bookshop, or visit
Barnes & Noble or
Amazon.co.uk. |
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