To be sidetracked is to be led astray by a path or an idea, a scent or a tune, and maybe lost forever. But no true biographer would mind that, if he can take a few readers with him. To find your subject, you must in some sense lose yourself along the way.

Meandering to Paris, Holmes' "Lost in France" chapter portrays the shadowy 19th-century figure of the early photographer Felix Nadar and the chilling and lonely suicide one frozen night of Gerard de Nerval. Later, he gives psychological insight into the macabre imagination of MR James, exemplary Cambridge scholar and ghost-story writer extraordinaire; a fly-on-the-wall account of Scott and Zelda Fitzgerald's last European trip; and a delicious encounter with Voltaire's green-eyed mistress. His best and most lengthy piece is, however, the essay devoted to the extraordinary (though brief) partnership of Mary Wollstonecraft and William Godwin. "The Feminist and the Philosopher" is an exceptionally well-written defence of early Romantic ideals and a passionate advocacy of the influence of Wollstonecraft, in particular, on the later writings of Coleridge, through her Letters Written During a Short Residence in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. It is Holmes' greatest achievement that the power of his essay is enough to send the reader back to this neglected classic. Above all, Holmes' commitment to the "inky demon" of writing, the medium through which he is able to unravel literary mysteries renders Sidetracks vibrant, unexpected, and endlessly fascinating. --Catherine Taylor