Sir Elmer Bole: A Life by Scholes Destry-Scholes

Thanks to Istanbul.com

Title: Sir Elmer Bole: A Life

Author: Scholes Destry-Scholes

Publisher Not known 

Source book: The Biographer’s Tale by AS Byatt 

Phineas G Nansen suddenly decides to abandon his studies in post modern literature. Ormerod Goode, joint head of department, suggests Nansen look at biography. Specifically Destry-Scholes’s magnum opus; his biography of Sir Elmer Bole (not having access to a title - because I haven’t yet read The Biographer’s Tale and to be honest I suspect I never will - once again I have invented my own). Here’s a article from The Guardian.

Having made seriously rude remarks about biographies in general, and drunk several glasses of Glenmorangie (a single malt whisky that wants my date of birth before allowing me access to its website), Nansen finds himself going home with the three volumes of Destry-Scholes’s book.

Volume I, A Singular Youth, with a frequently reproduced print of a view of King’s College, Cambridge on the cover, 

Volume II, The Voyager, with a faded old photograph of the Bosphorus, and 

Volume III, Vicarage and Harem, with a brown picture of some stiff little children throwing and catching a ball under some gnarled old apple trees.

Photographs in the book include Sir Prosper Bole, MP looking like God the Father, and one of three buttoned-up and staring Beeching sisters with scraped-back hair. Fanny (presumably Destry-Scholes’s mother) on the right.

Nansen becomes obsessed with Destry-Scholes’s book about Bole, and determines to write a biography of the biographer. But is there enough information about Destry-Scholes?

Does Nansen ever manage to write a book about the biographer Scholes Destry-Scoles? Or is there nothing to discover? If I have more to report - and I confess I have a poor record of failing to read AS Byatt’s books - I will come back to this.

Thanks to Hole Ousia.com