Eminent biographer, esteemed literary and cultural historian, essayist, reviewer, and editor, Peter Quennell was called "probably the last genuine example of the English man of letters" by the obituary writer for the London Times (29 October 1993). He was also a world traveler. Though he wrote only two books properly classified as travel writing, his lifelong practice of engaged attention to the many places he visited, his habit of reflective analysis of persons and customs, and his innate desire to study human expressions of beauty found along the continuum linking the present with the past all enriched his works, particularly his biographies. His success as a biographer, the foundation of his literary reputation, owes much to his travels. For Quennell the appeal of writing biography was the charm of visiting the past to imagine the social fabric of a former age and to give renewed life to one of its...