Beard's Roman Women

Beard's Roman Women is a 1976 novel by the prolific British novelist Anthony Burgess (something like his 21st novel). 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).

Related Topics:
Anthony Burgess - You've Had Your Time

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Photographs in the original edition were by David Robinson.

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It is set in La Dolce Vita Rome and is apparently based on Burgess' own experience of being widowed in the mid-1960s. Ronald Beard jets off to Hollywood and meets Paola Lucrezia Belli, an Italian photographer and descendent of the Roman dialect poet Guiseppe Gioacchino Belli. Various comic adventures ensue as the narrative switches to the Eternal City.

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This is an interesting companion piece to Burgess' 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).

Related Topics:
ABBA ABBA

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