A fascinating book, wonderfully written and full of colorful anecdotes. There was more to Cardigan than Trevor Howard’s ill-tempered loudmouth in Tony Richardson’s 1968 film, “The Charge of the Light Brigade” (although Howard nails that part of Cardigan’s personality with hilarious acuity). Cardigan was also extremely generous, giving away a fortune and dying deeply in debt despite his great wealth; sentimental beneath his rough carapace; and quite the debonair cavalier with the ladies. Thomas’s nuanced portrait is unforgiving of Cardigan’s undeniable faults, but also nuanced and humane. A fine biography, then: not hagiography, but neither does it descend into the caricature that Cardigan seemed almost to be trying to turn himself into during his life. (I also note Thomas’s range as a biographer is demonstrated by the other biography he wrote that I have read: Henry Fielding. Two rather different chaps, indeed!)