Word: wychwood
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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This tumult of passion, literature and coincidence belongs in the Dickensian tradition, and so does Ackroyd. The protagonist of his crowded and exuberant novel is another cursed poet, Charles Wychwood. One afternoon he comes across an old painting showing the marvellous boy as a middle-aged man. Curious, he begins to pore over some obscure manuscripts. They suggest that Chatterton faked his early death, then continued to write more verse under more assumed names, among them William Blake and Thomas Gray. "The greatest plagiarist in history?" inquires a colleague. "No!" Wychwood argues. "He was the greatest poet in history...
...greatest con artist. Throughout the narrative, nothing is as it seems. Wychwood's employer is an author who, it turns out, has plagiarized her books. His wife works for an art gallery where the paintings are palpable forgeries. Meanwhile, as the narrative flashes forward and back, parallel lies are occurring in other times and places. Meredith is being deceived; so are those who subscribe to the Chatterton myth...
...Chatterton's death by poison comes not out of despair but in the hope of finding a cure for the clap. Yet the poet himself is a poignant re-creation, and the supporting cast of irrepressible eccentrics might have tumbled from a chapter of Pickwick Papers. On a train, Wychwood literally devours a novel, rolling the pages into balls and popping them into his mouth...
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