How to Be a Complete Dandy: A Little Guide for Rakes, Bucks,...

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 246 pages
• Published by: Prion October 2001
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1853754528
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1853754524
• Book Dimensions: 7 x 4.8 x 1 inches
• Weighs: 9.9 ounces

Book Description
A natty little compendium of dandies through the ages, with meditations on dandyism’s key tenets, related arts, and unique outlook on all aspects of life, dress, deportment, style, drinking, gambling, ennui, idleness, extravagance, wit, hedonism, and oh so much more.

Publisher Description
It’s not just about dressing up. It’s an entire way of life. From Beau Brummel to Andy Warhol, the dandy is someone who has made a religion of himself and turned his life into a work of art. Rebellious style, razor–sharp wit, and outrageous antics have always been the dandy’s colorful calling cards. They are the eccentric outsiders who live fast, die young (usually), and make life more interesting for the rest of us. This compendium of quotes and commentaries surveys the complete history of the dandy and his excesses: Restoration Fops (Sir Fopling Flutter), Regency Bucks (Poodle Byng and Romeo Coates), 19th–Century Bohemians and Decadents (lobster–walking poets and absinthe–addled artists), the Edwardians, the Bright Young Things of the 20s and 30s, and the dandy’s recent role as the godfather of pop style and attitude.

Reader Reviews
This is a charming little book, the only fault of which is that it leaves one wishing for more. The dashing writing style and the author's light touch are well-suited to the subject, interspersing biographies of dandies, witty (of course!) quotes by famous dandies, examinations of various aspects of dandyism, and little scenes between two fictitious dandies. It is so evocative of the spirit of dandyism that I, who am in many ways the opposite of a dandy, began wishing that I were a little more like the historic and fictional bon vivants that inhabit its pages. My only criticism is that photographs are sometimes a little misplaced in the text, so that you are reading about Thomas Wainewright and looking at Benjamin Disraeli, but this is infrequent, and is a very small flaw in a gem of a book. Comment | | (Report this)