Richard Boston
Judicious Clowning
The Laughter of Triumph: William Hone and the Fight for the Free Press
By Ben Wilson
Faber & Faber 432pp £14.99 order from our bookshop
On a hot day, a perspiring London businessman paused in the street for a moment and removed his hat to mop his brow. William Hone, who was passing by, dropped a coin in the hat. This brilliant sight-gag may have been an impromptu joke, but could equally be an example of the absent-minded Hone’s habitual generosity. He found money ‘confoundedly annoying’. If you have money, he said, ‘you naturally divide it with some destitute and distressed fellow creatures’. In his time he made and lost several fortunes, went bust, and was imprisoned for debt before dying poor.
There has been increasing interest of late in the radical essayists and journalists of the early nineteenth century. In the last couple of years Hazlitt has been given a smart new tombstone in Soho and Tom Paulin has written a book about him, and there have been biographies of Mary
Sign Up to our newsletter
Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.@Lit_Review
Follow Literary Review on Twitter
'There is a difference between a doctor who writes medical treatises and a doctor who writes absurdist fiction. Do we want our heart surgeon to be an anti-realist?'
Joanna Kavenna peruses Iain Bamforth's 'Scattered Limbs: A Medical Dreambook'.
https://literaryreview.co.uk/trust-me-philosopher
How did Uwe Johnson, the German writer who was friends with Hannah Arendt and Max Frisch, end up living out his days in the town of Sheerness, Kent?
https://literaryreview.co.uk/estuary-german
You only have a week left to take advantage of our February offer: a six-month subscription for only £19.99.
https://www.mymagazinesub.co.uk/literary-review/promo/literaryfebruary/