51³Ô¹Ï

What sorts of books inspired you as a child?

Reading took off very late in my 1950s childhood ¨C football came first. But then I discovered historical fiction. The stories of Henry Treece and Rosemary Sutcliffe¡¯s Eagle of the Ninth about Roman Britain stand out. Then came Anya Seton¡¯s novels ¨C her Devil Water on the Jacobite rebellions was mind-blowing in adolescence, as were Mary Renault¡¯s recreations of ancient Greece. The last provided a bridge to ¡°real¡± history: Leonard Cottrell¡¯s ?Wonders of Antiquity and Bull of Minos opened up a world. The sheer excitement they gave me has never been surpassed.

Your new book explores ¡®how the Mediterranean shaped the British imagination¡¯. Which books first drew you to this theme?

All that 18th-century Gothic Italian fiction in English literature ¨C Horace Walpole¡¯s Castle of Otranto, Ann Radcliffe¡¯s A?Sicilian Romance ¨C epitomised for me an interest in the warm south as a formative influence in British imaginations. In modern academic literature, Giuliana Treves¡¯ The Golden Ring: The Anglo-Florentines 1847-1862 (1956), C. P. Brand¡¯s Italy and the English Romantics (1957) and John Buxton¡¯s The?Grecian Taste: Literature in the Age of Neo-?classicism (1968) are among books that suggested a larger theme.

Which books provided a model for a wide-ranging work of cultural history ranging across centuries?

I would single out Paul Fussell¡¯s Abroad: British Literary Travelling between the Wars (1980) and James Buzard¡¯s The Beaten Track: European Tourism, Literature and the Ways to ¡®Culture¡¯ 1800-1914 (1993). But I never really think of models. I have some gut instinct about what may work as a subject, and through the reading and especially the writing, I struggle to put a shape on things. It is very late in the day before I know if it will come off.

What general non-specialist overviews would you recommend for crucial episodes such as the Grand Tour and the British ¡®invention¡¯ of the French Riviera?

John Pemble¡¯s The Mediterranean Passion: Victorians and Edwardians in the South (1987) merits that overused word ¡°seminal¡±. For an earlier period, Rosemary Sweet¡¯s Cities of the Grand Tour: The British in Italy c.1690-1820 (2012) is enjoyably accessible. For le?sud, Michael Nelson¡¯s Queen Victoria and the Discovery of the Riviera (2001) tells a good story, although others ¨C like the leading Whig-Radical politician Henry Brougham, long-time resident in Cannes ¨C long beat Her Majesty to the c?te.

What is the last book you gave as a gift, and to whom?

My wife is an animal nut, and I recently gave her a double whammy on birds: Adam Nicolson¡¯s The Seabird¡¯s Cry: The Life and Loves of Puffins, Gannets and Other Ocean Voyagers and the 50th anniversary edition of J. A. Baker¡¯s The Peregrine. Both are wondrous.

What books do you have on your desk waiting to be read?

Hot on the heels of Colm T¨®ib¨ªn¡¯s House of Names, I am finishing Kamila Shamsie¡¯s 51³Ô¹Ï Fire. They make an interesting duo on contemporary terror in a larger frame of memory and association. Then I will read Hilary Spurling¡¯s Anthony ?Powell: Dancing to the Music of?Time.

Robert Holland is visiting professor at the Centre for Hellenic Studies at King¡¯s College London and the author of The Warm South: How the Mediterranean Shaped the British Imagination (Yale University Press).