Trevor-Roper

He did all he did, as Trevor-Roper subtly shows, because, compelled by Walter Mitty-esque fantasies, he could do no other.

Portrait of a Silver-Tongued Deceiver Joseph Epstein 2011

Ferreting out the pattern of Backhouse's behavior, Trevor-Roper notes: "Economic disappointment engendered psychological disorder, imaginary illness, self-pity — the customary syndrome."

Portrait of a Silver-Tongued Deceiver Joseph Epstein 2011

A student of aberrant personality — Trevor-Roper wrote the international best seller "The Last Days of Hitler" 1947 — he peels away the layers of deceit that allowed Backhouse to dupe a number of highly intelligent men, and discovers subtle psychological patterns behind his behavior.

Portrait of a Silver-Tongued Deceiver Joseph Epstein 2011

Symons's masterly portrait of Frederick Rolfe, another fraud with folie de grandeur , in "The Quest for Corvo," which Trevor-Roper recognizes in his final pages as haunting his own book.

Portrait of a Silver-Tongued Deceiver Joseph Epstein 2011

Trevor-Roper lucidly sorts out Backhouse's elaborate machinations, commenting upon them with a delicious irony.

Portrait of a Silver-Tongued Deceiver Joseph Epstein 2011

Trevor-Roper realized he was onto a subject for a fascinating book, one that, it turned out, would prove a masterpiece.

Portrait of a Silver-Tongued Deceiver Joseph Epstein 2011

The Backhouse memoirs, Trevor-Roper would note, constituted "one of the most fascinating and outrageous documents I have ever read."

Portrait of a Silver-Tongued Deceiver Joseph Epstein 2011

"That silver tongue," Trevor-Roper writes, "could charm away a mountain of concrete fact and give temporary credibility to the strangest of fantasies."

Portrait of a Silver-Tongued Deceiver Joseph Epstein 2011

What makes the book a masterpiece is not merely its author's sleuthing skills, which are at the Sherlock Holmesian level, but that Trevor-Roper also possessed one of the most polished prose styles of the past century — a style he put at the service of his unforgettable portrait of a magnificent charlatan.

Portrait of a Silver-Tongued Deceiver Joseph Epstein 2011

While limning his portrait, Trevor-Roper, almost by the way, provides a marvelous picture of the English imperialist power brokers in China, one of the most impressive of whom was G.E.

Portrait of a Silver-Tongued Deceiver Joseph Epstein 2011