Frank Prochaska

An imagined first-person memoir of Walter Bagehot composed by the historian Frank Prochaska, who writes in the preface that he took this route "because I thought Bagehot could speak more vividly of his life and mind than I could as an intermediary in a conventional biography" (p. viii). Prochaska goes on to declare the effort a "literary exercise," and as such I think it succeeds quite admirably.

Since it is intended to be written as a memoir of the mid-19th century there is, as one might expect, a dry detachment about the book; I found that it did not make particularly riveting pre-bedtime reading. But that notwithstanding, I really enjoyed reading it, and it made me wish there were, in fact, a conventional biography of Bagehot, because I'd certainly read that too.… (altro)