Beard's Roman Women
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| Author | Anthony Burgess |
|---|---|
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Hutchinson |
Publication date | 1976 |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 155 pp (hardback edition) |
| ISBN | ISBN 0-09-128400-7 (hardback edition) |
| OCLC | 16364951 |
Beard's Roman Women is a 1976 novel by British novelist Anthony Burgess.
Dated "Montalbuccio-Monte Carlo-Eze-Callian, Summer 1975", according to Burgess it was written in the back of his Bedford Dormobile and "partly in the bedroom of a small hotel run by Swiss homosexuals" (You've Had Your Time).
The novel is set in Rome and is apparently based on Burgess's experience of being widowed in the mid-1960s.
Photographs in the original edition were by David Robinson.
Plot introduction
Ronald Beard jets off to Hollywood and meets Paola Lucrezia Belli, an Italian photographer and descendant of the Roman dialect poet Giuseppe Gioacchino Belli. Various comic adventures ensue as the narrative switches to the Eternal City.
The book is an interesting companion piece to Burgess's next novel, Abba Abba (1977): the Roman setting (some 150 years apart), references to the poet Belli, and the focus on the Romantic poets. In Abba Abba John Keats is the main character; here it's Byron and Shelley as the subject of a screenplay by the main character.
Characters
- Ronald Beard
- Paola Lucrezia Belli an Italian photographer
- Greg Gregson old Friend of Ronald Beard
- Leonora Beard deceased wife of Ronald Beard
- P.R.Pathan famous writer and husband of Paola Lucrezia Belli
- John Keats – the poet
- Byron – the poet
- Shelley – the writer
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