Fields of fire. A life of Sir William Hamilton.
London, Weidenfeld and Nicolson 2001.
Full Description
8vo. xxvii + (1) + 324pp, (16)pp of photo ills. Publisher’s cloth, in dustwrapper.
Biography of Sir William Hamilton (1730-1803), HM Envoy Extraordinary to the Kingdom of The Two Sicilies, collector, vulcanologist, and host to all British upper-class travellers who reached Naples on their Grand Tour between the mid 1760s and 1800. As noted under the earlier biography of Hamilton by Fothergill (see that item), Beckford developed a particularly close friendship with Hamilton’s first wife, Catherine Hamilton, with whom he shared a love of music (see pp 103-7, 113-7 of the present volume). First, hardback edition (a paperback edition followed in 2002). Millington p.87.