1429 Superior Person: A Portrait of Curzon and his Circle in late Victorian England, by Kenneth Rose (read 26 Dec 1976) This is a superlative book: one I had no idea I would enjoy so greatly. It is an account of George N. Curzon, who was born 11 Jan 1859 and died in 1925. But this book covers the years up to 1898, when he was appointed Viceroy to India, and only one chapter is devoted to the gloomy years after 1898. But the book does not suffer at all from this arrangement, since after 1898 Curzon's career was downhill. The book's account of the school years and early career of Curzon is sheer enthrallment: he was an extraordinary person and though a physical wreck an intrepid traveler. The book is almost as good as John Clive's Macaulay: The Shaping of the Historian, which was my Book of the Year in 1975. ( )