Soldier. Farmer. Felon. Writer. Father. Lover. One man many lives. Born in 1799 Cashel
Greville Ross experiences myriad lives: joyous and devastating years of luck and unexpected
loss. Moving from County Cork to London from Waterloo to Zanzibar Cashel seeks his fortune
across continents in war and in peace. He faces a terrible moral choice in a village in Sri
Lanka as part of the East Indian Army. He enters the world of the Romantic Poets in Pisa. In
Ravenna he meets a woman who will live in his heart for the rest of his days. As he travels the
world as a soldier a farmer a felon a writer a father a lover he experiences all the
vicissitudes of life and through the accelerating turbulence of the nineteenth century he
discovers who he truly is. This is the romance of life itself and the beating heart of The
Romantic . From one of Britain's best-loved and bestselling writers comes an intimate yet
panoramic novel set across the nineteenth century. 'Picaresque big-hearted and moving this
is Boyd at the top of his game' Guardian 'There are few reading pleasures as great as giving
in to a William Boyd novel' Sunday Times 'One of our best contemporary storytellers'
Spectator 'Simply the best realistic storyteller of his generation' Sebastian Faulks
