Geoffrey Trease wrote well over one hundred novels in his life, but only four for adults. This is one of them. I believe this is the sort of novel which could no longer be written by almost any living author. It focuses on a world long gone and in a wry, witty and erudite narrative perfectly captures the atmosphere of Oxford, England, Paris and Italy in the 1820s shortly following the final defeat of Napoleon.
Adam, a young man from an impoverished background, is taken under the wing of a country parson, educated, and wins a place at Oxford. He devotes himself to study – what else can he do? As a junior fellow of his college, he researches the poetry of a minor Latin poet called Antonian, a sort of third rate Catullus or Ovid. In the long vacation he progresses to the Italian lakes in a bid to identify Antonian’s birthplace. There he meets with rather more of real life than he had hitherto experienced: a pompous and vain English philosopher, a third-rate Byron who plans on seduction, two liberated young American women, a flirtatious Italian chamber-maid – and the discovery of romance. The dry, scholarly Adam matures into a man of passion and of action.
I loved this novel. It is light, but intelligent, funny and knowledgeable, atmospheric and humane. The characters are deftly drawn. Adam is no innocent abroad, but kind and lacking in opportunity. The ending is all that could be hoped for. All praise to Odyssey Publishing for making it available once again to a new audience of readers.