Harold Acton
My choice of three best books of the year is determined by their rich variety of period, style and scholarship. Oscar Wilde by Richard Ellman (Hamish Hamilton, £15), Marie Antoinette by Joan Haslip (Weiden- feld, £14.95), Clarendon and His Friends by Richard 011ard (Hamish Hamilton, £15) have each in turn monopolised my interest. Both Marie Antoinette and Oscar Wilde, a preposterous tandem, suffered in worlds of their egocentric fantasy. Clarendon was a giant among patriotic statesmen who en- dured penury and exile yet soared above misfortune with his passion for Clio. Apart from these, I have been dazzled by Jonathan Brown's Veltisquez: A Painter and Courtier (Yale University Press, £49.50). Here is all-round perfection. The text is encyclopaedic and the illustrations are beyond praise. One feels that the master would have been gratified.
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