Shamim E. Haque ’s Reviews > The Man in the Red Coat > Status Update

Wonderful! Never heard of Robert Anatole, comte de Montesquiou-Fézensac, the French nobleman on who could, allegedly, have provided Wilde with a model for Dorian Gray. The dandies of the Belle Epoque Paris were not empty dummies on whom fashionable clothes were displayed only; they were also good authors and arbiters of taste who could defend their positions eloquently in critical works. Julian Barnes is a genius!