The Confessions of Harry Lorrequer
Charles Lever
$20.00

Lorrequer was merely a string of Irish and other stories – good, bad and indifferent, but mostly rollicking. Lever, who strung together his anecdotes late at night after the serious business of his day, was astonished at its success. “If this sort of thing amuses them, I can go on for ever.” Brussels was indeed a superb place for the observation of half-pay officers, such as Major Monsoon (Commissioner Meade), Captain Bubbleton and the like, who terrorized the taverns of the place with their endless Peninsular stories, and of English society a little damaged, which it became the speciality of Lever to depict. He sketched with a free hand, wrote, as he lived, from hand to mouth, and the chief difficulty he experienced was that of getting rid of his characters who “hung about him like those tiresome people who never can make up their minds to bid you good night”.

Illustrated