So Idle a Rogue: The Life and Death of Lord Rochester

Written with sympathy and verve, this biography of Rochester was well received when it was first published. One of the brightest and most outrageous luminaries at the court of Charles II, he was to drink himself to death by the age of 33. Notorious libertine, certainly; he was also a genius. 'A Satire against Reason and Mankind', shows as much weary disgust with himself as with the society he moved in. Famous for the obscenity of his amorous poems, he also penned some of the most moving, witty and lyrical love poetry of all time. He was infamous for his atheism, yet in his final year of life he stunned his friends and turned to God. In this biography, Jeremy Lamb examines for the first time the nature of Rochester's alcoholism and its implications for the man and his poetry. In doing so, it is the man behind the illness whom Lamb brings to life: a man riven by contradictions, by doubt and disgust. Lamb links the illness directly to his ultimate conversion, seeing it not as a fear of dying but rather the discovery of 'certainty'. What emerges from this brilliantly perceptive portrait is a profoundly unhappy genius who came to want no part of this world, or of himself. Lamb also rescues the man who blazed through his short life in glory and tragedy, genius and despair, and who is so little known today. Rochester is a truly forgotten figure in English history.