PAGAN LIGHT: Dreams of Freedom and Beauty In Capri

Tiberius, Fersen, Krupp, Norman Douglas, Compton Mackenzie, Gorky, Lenin, Rilke, Maugham, Neruda and just a little bit on Graham Greene and D. H. Lawrence, the focus of this book is on Capri the island as a haven for literary intellectuals between 1800 and 1950. James is very good at reappraising many of the novels and short stories set on the islands and revealing their reflections. Isolated and arrestingly beautiful, Capri has been a refuge for renegade artists and writers fleeing the strictures of conventional society from the time of Augustus, who bought the island in 29BC after defeating Antony and Cleopatra. Full of captivating anecdotes about this wildly permissive haven for people queer, criminal, sick, marginalised and simply crazy who had nowhere else to go. 'A languorous, tipsy walking tour' - The Washington Post. 322 page paperback, 14 pages of archive photos.