This is a similar format to Any Human Heart and The New Confessions, in that it features the whole life of a fictional character, written as though it were a real person. This time it is the nineteenth century which features in the life of Cashel Greville Ross. Boyd uses real life historical events and people (notably Waterloo and Lord Byron) and puts Cashel in the forefront of these events. On the way Cashel falls in love and pursues this love to the end of his life. Cashel, like Monstuart, gets involved in schemes and adventures in several different countries. This didn't work for me. Cashel's character was barely developed, he was just a figure in the centre of events, and the passion he developed for Raphaella did not convince. I found it really boring, highly implausible, and a bit of a boy's own adventure story.

Since I read Boyd's "Any Human Heart" a couple of years ago, it quickly became the book I've reread and recommended the most times. Also from that moment I thought that it was very difficult, almost impossible, for any other novel to surpass it or be as good as. But "The Romantic" has changed everything. "The Romantic" is (that overused word) awesome; un-put-down-able.

I haven't stopped googling names and events, and that's a sign of a good book. Boyd does know how to tell a good story and this latest book is no exception but a demonstration of this superb talent of his. He writes with accomplishment, balance, wit and wisdom. This is a transporting tale which has taken me on an epic journey.

The little drawings handmade by Boyd himself also make this book even more unique and special. The descriptions of the Shelleys and Lord Byron are both funny and sometimes savage, but always clever and well written.

I'll make sure I don't shut up about "The Romantic" when it comes out.

William Boyd is an excellent storyteller and The Romantic did not disappoint. Born in 1799, the hero Cashel Ross begins his story in County Cork and we follow his many lives from scholar to soldier, fugitive to farmer, explorer to expert. Like Any Human Heart. Cashel Ross’s own life story is woven through with some of the greatest and most significant historical events of the period but it is his own story and his own loves and losses that move the reader the most. Boyd does not shy away from Ross’s shortcomings as a man but, we learn, that it his fallibility and his heart that makes him such a beguiling lead character. This is a really enjoyable novel and draws on the richness of the nineteenth century world to highlight the dramatic changes and opportunities for adventure that Cavel Ross enjoyed. A great read for summer with a central character that stays with you when the novel ends.

A rare treat of a read.

This wonderful story follows the life of Cashel Greville Ross from humble beginnings in Cork through to his life's completion in Austria. We first meet Cashel as a young boy living with his aunt in Cork. Believing himself to be an orphan Cashel spends his days playing in the nursery of the big house where his Aunt is a governess. Soon his life is uprooted and he is moved to Oxford where he learns his Aunt is pregnant. Cashel is asked to pretend that his Aunt is his mother and her new twin babies are his brothers. A young Cashel is confused but goes along with the plan to protect their new life. As Cashel grows older he learns the truth about his parentage and in a fit of temper joins the army as a drummer where he is soon on the front lines in the battle of Waterloo.

An injured Cashel survives the war and we follow his incredible adventures across the next 60 years - from the army to authorship, debtors prison to farming, ale brewing to exploration and finally to Consulate work in Austria. Cashel lives an exciting and varied life that sweeps the reader along with him. The cast of characters is immense so keeping track of them all can be tricky - specially as they pop up now and again along Cashel's life journey. Romantic poets of the day put in an appearance too as Cashel spends several months with Byron and Shelley in Italy.

This really is a wonderfully absorbing book that kept me reading into the small hours.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for the ARC in exchange for an honest review.

William Boyd is never better than when constructing a novel based around the fictional life story of a supposedly historical figure who has in fact never existed. His early novel, The New Confessions about a filmmaker who gets caught up in the McCarthyite anti-communist witch-hunts of the mid-20th century, took this form. So did Any Human Heart., based around a series of journals by a fictional author whose life crossed paths with that of Ian Fleming and the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. It remains perhaps his best novel.
Happily, The Romantic is of similar quality. After a poor childhood in Ireland., Boyd's hero goes on to live a life which vigorously exhausts many of the possibilities of the 19th century, as much as those two earlier books took advantage of many of the events of the 20th.
It is a life of love affairs, business enterprises, adventure, betrayal, literary endeavours, encounters with Byron and the Shelleys and experience of fighting in the Battle of Waterloo.
In short, it is a great read.

With no shortage of interesting characters, adventure, romance and intrigue it’s hard not to be gripped by this fiction which purports to be based on a real person. The author introduces us to eighteenth century man, including some hints about his life, then tells us that his story will be a fictional one. Confusingly we are given snippets of written evidence, fact or fiction? It’s hard to tell. It’s a life filled with improbable events, a part at Waterloo, meeting famous people, getting caught up in schemes on a global scale. It’s hard to keep up with the characters who keep popping up in this life, and the reader can’t help feeling that the man is incredibly gullible, or so self centred he just doesn’t care about the chaos he causes. An improbable story, but well told.

Like most of my favorite William Boyd books, this is a new “whole life” novel which follows the unlikely hero, Cashel Greville Ross from his humble beginnings in County Cork in 1799 and his subsequent adventures spanning much of the 19th Century and across much of the globe.

In typical Boyd fashion, mixing historical fact with fiction and presenting as biography, Cashel, an illegitimate son of a governess and landed gentleman, finds himself at various stages: fighting in the Battle of Waterloo; an officer in the East India Trading Company; touring around Italy and falling in with Lord Byron, Percy Byssshe Shelley, Mary Shelly and her step-sister Claire Clairmont (and witnessing their tempestuous tangled relationships); having an affair and falling in love with an Italian noblewoman; becoming a bestselling author; landing in debtor’s prison; becoming a farmer, ice trader then brewer in New England; an African explorer in search of the source of the Nile; then a consul based in Trieste and finally ending up in hiding in Venice.

Boyd is a truly immersive writer and brilliantly captures the historical detail in each of the different settings. The novel is pacy and the reader is whipped along with Cashel through all the different stages of his life. It’s epic in sweep and presents a far-reaching and thought-provoking view of this period in history. With the whole of the world open to Cashel (who has no problems uprooting his life at a moment’s notice), there’s a delicious unpredictability for the reader about where Cashel is going to end up next and with whom. I particularly enjoyed the sections where Cashel becomes entangled into the lives of Byron and the Shelleys in Italy. It's amusing to read about them as secondary characters in someone else's story- footnotes or entertaining asides. However, Boyd also captures the romanticism of the poets, their obsession with their legacy as geniuses, but also their petty jealousies and tangled love lives which humanized these titans of literature and made me want to research further what was fact and what was fiction.

This book is enormous fun, witty but also capturing something about the endeavor of the human spirit. It’s brilliant and hugely entertaining! Boyd is a master of his craft and from page one you are in a safe pair of hands, whipped off on an incredible adventure.

My thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing me with a copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

This novel is a panoramic sweep through the nineteenth century as portrayed by the life of one man, whom we meet as a ten year old in rural Ireland, living with his governess aunt, befriended by her privileged pupils and the local farm children. Nothing however, is quite what it seems, and shortly after the story begins, the two of them settle in Oxford where life changes, it would seem for the better. From his wounding in the Battle of Waterloo, Cashel's changing occupations and fortune send him across India, America and Europe, all the while witnessing and being part of some of the major events and developments of the nineteenth century. Recurring characters tie this episodic narrative together, as we see all the events in the novel through the lens of its protagonist, who has set out to document many of his adventures as a writer, and thus describes everything to us in literary detail. I was surprised how much I enjoyed it!

William Boyd is an assured writer and storyteller and The Romantic is very good. It tells the tale of Cashel Greville Ross who lives a long and varied life throughout the 19th century.

His first experiences are in Ireland where he grows up in the care of Elizabeth Soutar, a Scot. He later experiences Oxford, Waterloo, India, Italy, America, Africa, Austria and, finally, Vienna.

He is an honest, decent man and tries to lead a good life. But he is easily duped, too easily trusting and believing people who should not have been trusted. And this leads to him having to flee various places and to change his name often.

He also attracts loyalty and love. He is the romantic after all. He finds the love of his life but she is not free. His life often seems aimless as he drifts from one calling to another: soldier, writer, adventurer, farmer, consul… He meets real life people as he traverses the century ( as many do in Boyd’s previous novels). I enjoyed the part where he met Byron, Shelley and Mary Shelley but he also meets the explorer Burton.

There are many characters throughout the novel but the standout is Cashel himself. We get intimately involved with his successes and losses and I was sad when the novel came to its inevitable ending. Highly recommended.

I read a copy provided by Netgalley and the publishers but I am an avid reader of Boyd’s work so must assert my opinions are my own.

The sign of a good book for me is when I frantically start googling historical people and events. William Boyd knows how to tell a great story and The Romantic is no different. The hero, Cashel Ross somewhat haphazardly lurches from adventure to adventure, at first bearing witness to other people’s drama and then creating drama of his own. The story is told by placing Cashel in the middle of great events of the time and weaving fiction with fact in a truly fascinating way. A fantastic read.

The Romantic is an exhilarating tale, superbly told, taking the reader on an epic journey through most of the 19th century and to such diverse locations as County Cork, Oxford, Waterloo, London, India, Italy, New England, Zanzibar, the African interior, Trieste, Rhodes, Venice, etc in the company of Cahel Ross, the eponymous romantic of the title. At its heart, this book is an enduring love story but it is also at times a rollicking adventure story as well as a commentary on the social conditions and mores of the various communities encountered by Cahel. The characters are superbly described, both the fictitious ones and the genuine historical ones with whom Cahel shares his adventures, and the reader can easily picture the physical appearance and personality of each one of them.

This book is very highly recommended.

This is my first William Boyd book and I’d been wondering why I’d not yet read anything by this author. The synopsis of this book really caught my eye and I was looking forward to immersing myself in the world of Cashel Greville Ross.

Epic in scope, Cashel’s life’s is told in glorious technicolour as we follow him to the Battle of Waterloo, British-occupied India, Italy at the same time as Shelley and Byron… the list goes on. The characters are all really well written, and each individual ‘chapter’ of Cashel’s life is interesting in its own right, but as a whole I found this book just a little bit rambling, He seems to bounce from one country or situation to the next, without any real consequences or outcomes, and by halfway through I wasn’t quite sure how much I cared about him.

That’s not to say this isn’t a well-written and entertaining book, I just found some of the twists of fate a little bit too convenient to be plausible.

Thank you to NetGalley and the publisher for my ARC in exchange for an honest review.

This is an involving romp and journey through a succession of nineteenth century places and events. Ireland, England, France, India, Africa, Belgium, Italy and America.

On top of that you are involved with real life events and people. In particular I loved the interludes with Shelley and Byron.

It would be difficult for William Boyd to write a duff sentence and he even manages to make Cashel Greville Ross engaging. Boyd really is a superb writer who knows how to keep you engaged

Cashel is man who uses and abuses the women who love him and then constantly running out and abandoning them due to his sensibilities. A touch of the Marianne Dashwood self indulgence and self worth here. He is almost a nicer, better educated Flashman.

I hope in the pre-interview hype and hyperbole that will accompany the launch we will discover how and why William Boyd chose the particular places and people he did.

I have given this four stars as whilst I enjoyed reading it I was never emotionally engaged. That might be harsh.

William Boyd is an exceptional writer, Every one of his books leaves me literally breathless! He writes with skill, poise and wisdom and each page stays with you! This story of Cashel Ross was full of intrigue and so many high and low points, not a quick read but a book i’ll remember for a very long time.

William Boyd always tells a good story and The Romantic is no exception, weaving facts and fiction to deliver a panoramic view of the 19th century.

His hero, Cashel Greville Ross is born in 1799 and lives through the Battle of Waterloo, time in the East India army, an encounter with the Romantic poets and an expedition to find the source of the Nile. Along the way he lives and loves with bit of a tendency to lose lovers, friends and family and then to meet up again. It has all the ingredients of a classic yarn in the John Buchan tradition.

The real skill is the ability to make this story ‘real’, locating it and contextualising the plot so effortlessly that you can’t help but want to know where it ends while accepting the occasional rewriting of history that keeps it flowing. That must come from serious research and it is worth noting that, sometimes, even the footnotes – which you assumed were helpful and relevant – zip off sideways! You don’t know that Coleridge and Shelley were like the ones encountered by Cashel but there’s an irresistible whiff of irreverent authenticity about their meetings.

It’s interesting to reflect on how many recent books situate their fictional characters within real-life events. Kate Atkinson is an expert and her latest book, dealing with the early 20th-century, is a nice parallel to The Romantic. Great Circle by Maggie Shipstead is another example.

Some people might think that there are too few women in the narrative and it is true that most of them are kind of ancillary to the action but then this is a man’s life story and these are his perceptions. It’s a great read from a master storyteller!

The Romantic by William Boyd
Published date - 6 October 2022
Rating - 4 stars

This book is about the life and times of the protagonist, MR CASHEL GRENVILLE ROSS, during the 1800's.
I found this book compelling and loved Cashel's story along with the writing, vocabulary and is so beautifully written. I was transported across the countries with Cashel around the globe!

Boyd's writing is witty and enjoyable and THE ROMANTIC reminds me of another novel of his, The New Confessions (1987).

I would recommend this novel.

I WANT TO THANK NETGALLEY FOR THE OPPORTUNITY OF READING AN ADVANCED COPY OF THIS BOOK FOR AN HONEST REVIEW

I loved everything about this book and couldn't put it down. Cashel is a very appealing, and very believable character, and his story is fascinating. The 19th century is an interesting period, and the author cleverly puts Cashel in many important scenes, so the reader gets a real sense of the changes which occurred between the start of the century and the end. As always with this author, the writing is superb, and the descriptions are very vivid. I was sorry to come to the end of the book, and I will certainly be recommending it.

William Boyd is one of my favorite authors and thanks to an early netgalley by Viking, i was able to enjoy the upcoming " The Romantic".  

I absolutely loved this book, Boyd is back to what he does best, writing a fictional biography about a human life, in this case Cashel Greville Ross, born 1799, died 1882,  which seems so real that you have to stop yourself hitting Google search.  And what an incredibly colorful, roller coaster life Cashel had, from orphan to diplomat, from England, Ceylon, Italy , Amerika back to Europe and of course there is a love story at the center of the novel. I devoured the 464 pages quickly and felt at times, given the century the novel is set in,  as if  reading a classic. Wholeheartedly recommend this fabulous story by a master storyteller.

Interesting tale of a fictional man's life born in 1799, through to 1880s. A flawed man, making huge decisions with the best of intentions, rather quickly and completely ruled by 'fate' - reminded me a bit of Hardy's Mayor of Casterbridge. He was often prosperous but seemingly doomed to leaving those he loved, behind.
I loathed his callousness at times, but his personality seemed shaped by his early, deceptive childhood (no spoilers here). He makes promises to return to people which he doesn't fulfill - maybe that's just how 'gentlemen' made their fortunes in the 1800s, travelling constantly. You want to shout out at his naievete sometimes - but then again it is this naivete that propels him fully into his next project - without it, he'd have had a much 'safer'/boring life. He has many, varied roles in life: Waterloo hero (and here's a confession - I've never thought of that battle taking place anywhere other than at sea before, lol - who's the naieve one now?!), soldier in Sri Lanka, explorer, author, felon, lover and family man to name a few.
You do like the character, and curse those who take advantage of him - he doesn't believe in self pity but does examine his motivations towards the end of his life. Left me shocked and sad at the end. Loved Ignatz - I want a book on his life now!

Boyd is a brilliant writer, but I was wondering, from the blurb, how he was going to work this one out. Here, he examines and follows the life of the protagonist, Cashel Greville Ross born in 1799. This is an epic novel in the way of span of time, stretching into the 19th century and the evocation of setting is one of Boyd's skills. No exception here. The use of humour works well (difficult to pull off) and as the novel goes on, the depth of characterisation makes for a fascinating insight into Ross' life and changing fortunes. And I think it was that, the very ppt characterisation that kept me going here. I wasn't particularly expecting to enjoy this novel, but the narrative style is compelling and the inclusion of 'The Romantics' (Byron etc.) is well-considered and adds a particularly evocative dimension.

Grateful thanks to Netgalley and the publishers for an ARC.