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Michael Dean
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I, Hogarth: A Novel Kindle Edition

by Michael Dean (Author) Format: Kindle Edition
4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 51 ratings
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The great eighteenth century portraitist comes to life in this “gritty, bawdy and funny” rags to riches novel told in the voice of the artist himself (The New York Times).
 
William Hogarth was London’s artist par excellence, and his work—especially his satirical series of “modern moral subjects”—supplies the most enduring vision of the ebullience, enjoyments, and social iniquities of the eighteenth century.
 
And in I, Hogarth, he tells a ripping good yarn.
 
From a childhood spent in a debtor’s prison to his death in the arms of his wife, Hogarth recounts the incredible story of how he maneuvered his way into the household of prominent artist Sir James Thornhill, and from there to become one of England’s best portrait painters.
 
Through his marriage to Jane Thornhill, his fight for the Copyright Act, his unfortunate dip into politics, and his untimely death, “the voice in which Dean’s Hogarth tells his own story is rich and persuasive . . . Like stepping into a Hogarth painting” (The New York Times).
 
“A brilliant exercise in imagination and storytelling.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Previous page
  1. Print length
    269 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Sticky notes
    On Kindle Scribe
  4. Publisher
    The Overlook Press
  5. Publication date
    February 25, 2014
  6. File size
    3436 KB
  7. Page Flip
    Enabled
  8. Word Wise
    Enabled
  9. Enhanced typesetting
    Enabled
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Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

Dean, a linguist by training, has the renowned, eighteenth-century British painter, engraver, and illustrator William Hogarth tell his own life story in a work of vivid and ribald first-person historical fiction. His father is an unworldly writer of abstruse texts who lands in debtor’s prison. His long-suffering yet entrepreneurial mother saves her family with the help of a moneylender. Hogarth—Billy to his friends—escapes the shocking confines of poverty through the arts, first as an apprentice engraver, then as a painter. We follow him from success to success, but he cannot forsake the pleasures of the flesh, and they exact their revenge on his health and his marriage. Or so Hogarth reports, offering unvarnished opinions of his enemies and fulsome praise for the pale, ample flesh of the harlots he can’t quit. Not lust but pride cuts our smallish, increasingly pudgy man down to size. The period details are unobtrusive; the language is direct; the story, told in vignettes, is surely meant to evoke Hogarth’s crowded prints. Not only devotees of historical fiction will enjoy Dean’s Hogarth. --Michael Autrey

Review

Praise for the work of Michael Dean:

"A witty, intelligent black comedy . . . convincing background detail." --Carla Nayland, Historical Fiction

"A fascinating story, intelligently and perceptively written." --Karen Hayes, author of Letting Go

"Forget Dan Brown. This is real art history, real conspiracy, and really relevant." --World on Sunday

Product details

  • ASIN ‏ : ‎ B07RW5XC1H
  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ The Overlook Press; Reprint edition (February 25, 2014)
  • Publication date ‏ : ‎ February 25, 2014
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • File size ‏ : ‎ 3436 KB
  • Text-to-Speech ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Screen Reader ‏ : ‎ Supported
  • Enhanced typesetting ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • X-Ray ‏ : ‎ Not Enabled
  • Word Wise ‏ : ‎ Enabled
  • Sticky notes ‏ : ‎ On Kindle Scribe
  • Print length ‏ : ‎ 269 pages
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.0 4.0 out of 5 stars 51 ratings

About the author

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Michael Dean

Michael Dean

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My most recent novel is 'True Freedom' published by Holland Park Press in June 2019. It is about how America came to fight Britain for its freedom in the eighteenth century. Stephan Collishaw said 'Michael has a wonderful, almost Dickensian ability to sketch out entertaining characters.'

'The White Crucifixion' (Holland Park Press) is a novel about Marc Chagall's vivid life in terrible times. Jane Harris said 'Good news for fans of the brilliant but enigmatic artist Marc Chagall: this impeccably researched novel will illuminate the dark corners of his life.'

I also have a five-novel e-book series set in Germany from 1867-1971 called 'Darkness into Light' (The Rise and Fall of the Nazis). Published by Sharpe Books, the novels are available in one collection (Darkness into Light) or individually. They have different characters and settings but together they trace the sweep of German history in the twentieth century.

'

Customer reviews

4 out of 5 stars
4 out of 5
51 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

manosque
5.0 out of 5 stars An Artist's fascinating progress
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2013
This bio-fic is a fascinating and multi-layered evocation of a great but still probably underrated artist.
It is by no means a comfortable piece of hagiography. Of one character the eponymous narrator says 'I resolved then and there to tell the truth in future, to find the real man and show him, not to create my own version-someone I liked.' As if in keeping with that resolve Hogarth in this author's hands is portrayed with every wart, pimple and sore , both physical and moral, painfully on show - truly a flawed genius. The book can be enjoyed and admired on several levels: as a meticulously researched biography (albeit adapted in some respects as the author admits in an afterword), as a vivid portrait of Georgian London's artistic and political mores and as a poignant Morality Play - the `Progress' of a great talent from humble beginnings through lauded eminence to final, self inflicted, humiliation. It succeeds on all counts.
One person found this helpful
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4.0 out of 5 stars Hogarth, the sexy devil
Reviewed in the United States on March 12, 2013
Verified Purchase
Mostly interesting view of the man, not the artist. A unique account of where Hogarth may have picked up the idea for one of the plates for "Rake's Progress". A slim volume, quickly read, has inspired me to finally attack the massive bio written by Uglow. Was Hogarth truly the consumer of London's delights resulting in his acquiring the French pox as portrayed here?
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Cathleen
5.0 out of 5 stars fabulous!
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2013
I'm a library director who has served on the American Library's Association Notable Books committee which picks the best books of the year. If I was on that committee this year, I'd nominate this book. The author has created a charming, flawed, witty and dare I say, adorable character based on the artist William Hogarth. From the opening scene, when Hogarth is a child, the reader comes to relish and understand this artist, who lived life to it's fullest and had a remarkable talent that he used to try to make social change. The historical background is terrific, awful at times, so smelly and everyone's health so fragile, but well-researched and absorbing. Hogarth is funny, nervy, self-depracating and egotistical, a character for the ages. An amazing read!
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Thomas F. Dillingham
3.0 out of 5 stars One can easily imagine the author working with one of those "timelines" ...
Reviewed in the United States on July 11, 2014
Verified Purchase
It's hard to write about this tidy little novel without seeming to damn with faint praise--because faint praise is about the most one can offer to it. It is almost a cookie-cutter novel. One can easily imagine the author working with one of those "timelines" of Hogarth's life, indicating to himself which dramatic moments can be "developed" into fictional scenes, which characters to foreground, and so on. And then--essentially writing the scenes in chronological order, with some Dickensian evocation of debtor's prison (a la Little Dorrit) and some vigorous exercises at bawdy houses (to establish Hogarth's and his friends' sexual propensities, including some ambidextrous action on the side, though the nice Frenchman disappears without explanation), the obligatory visit to the apothecary for treatment of the "French pox," and so forth. William Hogarth is portrayed---telling his own story in a first-person narrative that I would argue was a very bad choice of medium---as a strong temperament, given to impulsive and sometimes violent actions that undermine his progress through life. At the same time, we are schooled to believe that he has an uncanny "eye" for the details and social/moral significance of the human behavior and urban settings that surround him, fertilizing his imagination and generating his brilliant satirical narrative images of London life.

When one is reading a novel based on the life of a famous man, the question is always present--why not read a real biography and set aside the constant nagging questions about when or whether the author is embellishing (are those lubiricious sex scenes really relevant to Hogarth's life? -- how do we know?) or distorting or suppressing--authorial actions we always hope are NOT practiced by an honest scholarly biographer. What, then, do we hope for in a biographical novel? Literary excellence, for one thing, and insights into the significance of the life--not true or false "facts" about what the subject did or said at any particular point, but presentation of the life in a way that illuminates the meaning and value of the subject's actions or creations. Do we find these in Mr. Dean's novel. Not really. There are some strong and very entertaining scenes, and Hogarth, himself, comes across as an interesting individual. The rest of the characters are sketched quickly, some with more success than others, but finally exist only to populate his world, as it is portrayed. In other words, this is a novel that aspires to complexity and perhaps to some gravity as an exploration of an artist's life and work, but is finally a very slight entertainment with little to offer for anyone seeking insight or literary power.
2 people found this helpful
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clean
4.0 out of 5 stars Fictionalized Hogarth
Reviewed in the United States on July 4, 2013
Verified Purchase
I thought this was a bio of Hogarth when I purchased it. I was, however, delightfully surprised when it was a fictionalized version of his life and the period. The fictionalized version takes you deeply into that time period and the feelings of Hogarth as he strives for success.
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JWBklyn
4.0 out of 5 stars An interesting fictional first-person perspective
Reviewed in the United States on August 1, 2013
Verified Purchase
Interesting times, interesting character brought to life by Michael Dean. Helps to have an appreciation of the art world and works of the time but would be enjoyable even if the reader didn't.
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Top reviews from other countries

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wally walter
5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent the information about a VERY interesting person who with his influence got the copyright act introduced
Reviewed in Australia on August 8, 2018
Verified Purchase
Excellent in providing information about life of an artist in that era who was responsible for the intrroductio of the copyright act
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jo
3.0 out of 5 stars OK
Reviewed in France on April 4, 2013
Verified Purchase
Celle ci n'et pas un roman klef. Un peux de trop de imagination et pas sufficient intellect. J'ai m'ennui mai j'ai le fini.
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manosque
5.0 out of 5 stars An Artist's Fascinating Progress
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on November 20, 2012
Verified Purchase
This bio-fic is a fascinating and multi-layered evocation of a great but still probably underrated artist.
It is by no means a comfortable piece of hagiography. Of one character the eponymous narrator says 'I resolved then and there to tell the truth in future, to find the real man and show him, not to create my own version-someone I liked.' As if in keeping with that resolve Hogarth in this author's hands is portrayed with every wart, pimple and sore , both physical and moral, painfully on show - truly a flawed genius. The book can be enjoyed and admired both as a meticulously researched biography , a vivid portrait of Georgian London's artistic and political mores and as a poignant Morality Play - the `Progress' of a great talent from humble beginnings through lauded eminence to final, self inflicted, humiliation. It succeeds on all levels.
I have remarked before on the versatility of Mr.Dean but whether it is Hitler's Europe, 17th Century Amsterdam, 1970's Germany or the present work he never disappoints and as before I am left with the pleasurable anticipation of where his roaming imagination will take me next time.
2 people found this helpful
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W. H. Benson
4.0 out of 5 stars Great Read
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 4, 2013
Verified Purchase
I have a vested interest in Mr Hogarth having just uncovered a painting of John Rich, his friend. I'm therefore gobbling up as much info about the times as I can. With that in mind I found I, Hogarth a really good read. It starts of a little strangely but when you get into the tempo of how it has been written it was great. It sets the life and times of 18th C London really very well and Iiked the upbeat mannerism he makes Hogarth perceive to be.
Well done.
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JanC
5.0 out of 5 stars A great read about an amazing artist and life in18th-century England
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 8, 2018
Verified Purchase
I enjoyed reading this book very much. It depicts life in 18th-century England in a colourful way, and the style reminds me of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding. Yes, it is bawdy in places, but to me that simply serves to create a realistic atmosphere. I have always admired Hogarth’s work, and I enjoyed reading about his life as a novel in this way. I think that Michael Dean has succeeded in describing this gifted and hard-working artist, with his failings, and his long-suffering wife in a way that is both entertaining and informative. I suspect that people who were disappointed in the book might have been expecting a more sanitised version of life in 18th-century London, but to me it is a fascinating period that needs to be depicted with honesty. I, Hogarth is a good page-turner. I recommend it.
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