I’m not sure what to make of this, I liked it but then at times I didn’t!
I was intrigued and initially thought I was reading a very well researched biography - until I ‘googled him anyway!

Thank you to Netgalley and Knopf Doubleday Public Catalog for my eARC

This book was interesting. I spent the whole read trying to figure out if I loved it or hated it. I'm still not sure.

A rollicking, picaresque, and beautifully written novel. Loved It! Will definitely be buying for my library

The Romantic is aboutthe life of one man, Castel Greville Ross who was a real person according to the authors note explaining his inspiration for this novel. It’s a fun read with maps and footnotes and I enjoyed it particularly when he meets Shelley and Byron.

This long and interesting saga might have been more appropriately titled anything but “The Romantic”. OK, I am about to be the one who calls out all the mucking about, half truths and fantasies that comprise the life of the fictional character Boyd creates and fully embraces in this story. Don’t get the wrong impression - I liked the book, I just admit to not understanding many of the forays into whatever and wherever.

Boyd has created the fictional character of Cashel Grenville Ross, ands tries to fit his story into documented facts, reliving his life through travels, travails, neuroses and the capacity to love and leave and leave and leave while he continued to convince himself that if he had stayed everything might have worked out. He is aware of his pattern of “always moving on, leaving people he loved behind. But he hadn’t discarded them, he insisted to himself.” We are all entitled to our delusions.

The book is long, but then Cashel Grenville Ross has many anecdotes and situations to relate. Many experiences to share. Many ways he has been wronged and set upon that require explantation. Marching with his drum in the battle at Waterloo, being in the Employ of the East India Company with his bought commission, rubbing elbows with the literary geniuses of Shelley and Byron while moving from Milan, Pisa, Florence, Ravenna, exploring the origin of The Nile, farming ice and hops in Massachusetts, and never forget the time when he unwittingly consorted with antiquity robbers in Trieste - always loving and leaving along the way. In his eighty years he has lived so large, explaining that he always “did what he did because it was what he felt he had to do - right or wrong”. As the story fades, he contemplates the irony of unrequited love, “pleased with the conceit, the conception, the symbolism” of Paolo and Francesca in Dante’s poem - lovers unavailable to each other, never to be reunited.

Thanks to Alfred A. Knopf and NetGalley for a copy of this outstanding literary fiction.

One of the best books read in a long time. Absolutely perfectly written—exciting, fascinating, historically accurate and just plain interesting. This ‘“autobiography” of Cashel Ross(1799-1882) tells the story of Ross as he is involved in various love affairs(one over arching one) and historical situations and events. Moving and thought provoking I cannot recommend it highly enough.

I received an ARC of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

I had a very hard time getting into this book. I just didn't connect with most of the characters.

DNF at 8%.

This book just wasn't for me. So far all I can tell is that this book is about nothing but sex, and not in a good way. Less than 50 pages in and there have already been two children raped, and a whole lot of teen boy masturbation. Every consensual act is boiled down to pure mechanics. It's just gross. The title is misleading as there is nothing "romantic" about it.

Another masterpiece by William Boyd. The life story of Cashel Ross the illegitimate son of a wealthy man and how he makes his way in life. From the battle of Waterloo, to the search for the Nile, various love affairs and set backs it was a fascinating and wonderful life and a great adventure.

In the sense of what a romantic was considered in the 1800s, Cashel Greville Ross hits all the marks: visionary, spontaneous, and imaginative with an openness and optimism to new ideas and people. Through the 1800s he seems to pop up as a sort of combined Zelig and Forrest Gump who tries to make the best of things even though he does not always think things through nor offer the most informed advice/opinions. Who he meets and how he interacts with various luminaries was the most fun and enjoyable part of the book for me. Cashel travels around the world always anticipating a better outcome. I was not so much into his personal travails with his unusual family situation and later plights; it was all about the adventure for me. Recommended for those who want to escape the modern world and dip into the past and all its possibilities. Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for providing this title.

This epic tale of Cashel Grenville Ross, born in Scotland in 1799, takes a bit of patience as it ping pongs through history. Know that Boyd has placed his hero in the midst of many historic events but that he treads lightly through them. This is surprisingly, given the length of the novel,. a bit of a page turner. I'd not read Boyd in years but this quickly reminded me of the quality of his writing and why I have enjoyed it in the past. Thanks to Netgalley for the ARC. For those who enjoy sagas.

A delightful romp of a read: a novelization of a faux biography of Cashel Ross Greville, a Victorian adventurer and, uh, romantic.

Cashel is born in 1799 in Scotland and is brought up by his aunt in Ireland. From there, over the course of his life, after he survives the battle of Waterloo, he travels and lives in Oxford, London, India, Italy, Massachusetts, Africa, France, Austria. In a Zelig-esque way he encounters the romantic poets Shelley and Byron as well as explorers John Speke and Richard Burton.

As well as real life figures, Cashel’s life intersects with great themes and events of the 19th century from colonialism, immigration, appropriation of antiquities, and the “discovery” of inner Africa to the social and domestic revolutions of the railway and indoor plumbing and gas and electricity. These are all integrated organically into Cashel’s life and we share his wonder and era-appropriate responses to them.

Cashel’s adventures are all set in motion by other people - family, friends, acquaintances - and outside circumstances. But once he’s on board he becomes an enthusiastic participant until the inevitable downturn in fortunes and then he jumps ship to his next adventure. There is a torrid romance with an Italian countess that he never quite gets over as well as a New England marriage for which he converts rather half-heartedly to Catholicism but which also means fatherhood.

The novel is written much as you would expect a rather pompous cleric to write a biography, including some pedantic footnotes, when he has stumbled across a sheaf of personal notes and letters, but yet manages to become a joyous vista of a life lived in a time of huge change and upheaval but, most of all, of opportunity and possibility. Of course this only applies if you’re white, middle class, and male, but if you’re ok with that, I highly recommend The Romantic.

Thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for the digital review copy.

THE ROMANTIC takes a little bit to get going, but I'm glad I kept reading. This epic tale is delightful as it follows a restless adventurer across the world. The author does a wonderful of evoking time period and various settings. The cover is gorgeous and captures the premise in a beautiful way. Highly recommended for fans of classic Victorian novels.

I was provided with an e-galley of the book by NetGalley and the publisher in exchange for an unbiased review, and these opinions are my own.

*A big thank-you to William Boyd, Knopf, and NetGalley for arc in exchange for my honest review.*
An epic tale of a man who was born at the dawn of the 19th century and who lived through the Romantic period and well into the Victorian times. The novel is written in a well-appreciated manner of literature of the past in which the protagonist's origins are surrounded by a mystery (how romantic!) and who leads a life of adventures and journeys to exotic places where he experiences failures and successes, meeting some historical figures and taking part in historical events.
This novel is by all means one of the best I have read this year!

Boyd takes us all over the world and through the 19th century through the fictional Cashel Greville Ross. Born in Ireland as an ostensible orphan being raised by his aunt, after moving with her to Oxford he finds his origins are far different. The shocking discovery spurs him to leave home as a teen, become a soldier, and begin his wandering adventures.

At times the story reminded me of Tom Jones, Gulliver’s Travels and even Victorian erotic novels. It’s hugely adventurous, with many improbable situations and meetings. Cashel at Waterloo, spending weeks with Lord Byron and Percy Bysshe Shelley’s family in Italy (not to mention an intense romantic affair there), adventures and misadventures in London, Middlesex County Massachusetts, Africa, Trieste, Vienna, Baden-Baden.

You don’t see many novels like this anymore; a big (in scope, range and heart) fictional life-and-times story, full of highs and lows, romance and adventure. It’s a wonderful book to dive into and be a part of a whole different world. It would make quite a miniseries, but the book is pleasure enough.

This story flies by, is entertaining, and also brings the 1800s to life. Highly recommended.
The Romantic is engrossing historical fiction and the latest of William Boyd's whole-life novels that recounts the remarkable life of Cashel Ross. The frame story, set by an introduction by the author, posits that he, "WB" was given a packet of documents, drawings, diaries, and clippings that chronicle Ross's life (and a lot of the history of technological advances like train travel) starting in 1800 in Ireland.
Ross has a questionable origin story and is impetuous, ruled by his heart and not always his intellect. He is also a lovable character and his adventures take him all over Europe and to the United States, introducing the reader to some real-life historical figures such as Mary Shelley and Byron, as well as lesser-known historical events. Ross is driven by a romantic entanglement that propels him from place to place, always looking for his first love in the faces of others. Boyd's writing, as ever, is full of detail and emotion. Much of the story is funny, though there are melancholy episodes as he hops from one profession to another, including being a soldier, an explorer, a farmer, and a diplomat.
For readers who loved "Any Human Heart," this novel will satisfy that thirst for a strong central character and lots of historical detail.
Thanks to NetGalley and Penguin books for an advance copy of this novel in exchange for a fair review.

Fictional character Cashel Greville Ross (1799-1882) left behind an incomplete autobiography and a clutch of letters and ephemera. In the Author’s Note, William Boyd tells that came into possession of these artifacts and determined to write a biography of Ross. But knowing that “all biography is fiction,” he turned Ross’s life into a novel.

And what a novel it is! I was carried away by Ross’s story of reversals of fortune across a century of great changes. It recalled to mind the early novels that I love, those picturesque tales with surprise twists and hilarious and sobering insights into human nature.

Ross is caught up in the Romantic Era’s idealization of the individual and the personal emotional life, a reaction to the Age of Reason. His spontaneous decisions are regretted later, but he must follow his heart.

Learning of his true identity, the teenage Ross runs away from home to join the army and is injured at the Battle of Waterloo. He joins the East India Company and takes a moral high ground that ends his career. In Italy he meets Mary and Percy Bysshe Shelly and Lord Byron, and finds and abandons the love of his life. He writes a best seller and should be rich but lands in the Marshalsea Prison. He tries farming in America and marries unhappily, and has to flee again. He is convinced to participate in an ill-fated expedition to find the source of the Nile.

He has achieved greatness and riches and love, only to lose them all.

Ross followed his heart, for better or worse. And when he uses his head, he didn’t fare any better. At life’s end, he learns to accept the life he had lived, no regrets.

And what a wonderful lesson that is for us all.

Thanks to the publisher for a free book.

A bitter-sweet tale of a restless adventurer that went from Ireland through the battlefield of Waterloo, India, Italy, rural America, and Africa in an eventful life that is also ripe with misfortunes and deceits. The author is able to capture the atmosphere of the different places in a rich detailed way. Each chapter begins a little ahead of the story increasing the suspense of the tale. And one of the main reasons I decided to read the book was the wonderful cover that captures the spirit of the book. A great read.