In Literature
Charteris was the inspiration for the characters in William Hogarths paintings, A Rake's Progress and A Harlot's Progress (where he is represented as the fat lecher in the first plate), and in Fanny Hill. He was condemned by Alexander Pope in his Moral Essay III, written in 1733. Parallels were drawn between Charteris' sexual excesses, and the greed of politicians such as Robert Walpole. Some sources say that he was a founding member of the Hellfire Club, although the famous club founded by Francis Dashwood did not begin to meet until 1743. He may have been a member of the original "Hell-Fire Club" founded by Philip Wharton, 1st Duke of Wharton in 1720. Leslie Charteris, creator of Simon Templar, The Saint, was a later admirer, and legally changed his surname to Charteris from Bowyer-Yin.
Read more about this topic: Francis Charteris (rake)
Famous quotes containing the word literature:
“A book is not an autonomous entity: it is a relation, an axis of innumerable relations. One literature differs from another, be it earlier or later, not because of the texts but because of the way they are read: if I could read any page from the present time—this one, for instance—as it will be read in the year 2000, I would know what the literature of the year 2000 would be like.”
—Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986)
“The struggle of literature is in fact a struggle to escape from the confines of language; it stretches out from the utmost limits of what can be said; what stirs literature is the call and attraction of what is not in the dictionary.”
—Italo Calvino (1923–1985)