Monday, June 09, 2008

Beards in Literature


A friend, horrifed by Wilkie Collins's beard, said, "What a beard!" and suggested I do a piece on beards of literary men. So I've done a little investigation and posted photos of: (1) Wilkie Collins (top left); (2) Charles Dickens (below Collins); (3) Anthony Trollope (below) and (4) Henry James (below Trollope). Not all Victorian writers had beards as I learned after INTENSIVELY searching the internet (meaning 10 minutes). George Gissing and Edmund Gosse, for example, sported tasteful moustaches (which one hopes may have boosted sales despite their radicalism). There's something rather grotesque about two of the beards (who were their stylists?), though I like Dickens's. Which of these is your favorite beard? A, B, C, or D?

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