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Choice Review
In 1909, when he was in his 40th year, Robert Ross was highly regarded as an art editor. His criticisms were vibrant and fresh; his "word pictures" on painters and their works did much to increase the pleasure of those who attended the exhibitions he reviewed. Companion to painters and poets, he was on the best of terms with such artists as Charles Ricketts, Roger Fry, and William Rothenstein; such writers as Edmund Gosse, H.G. Wells and Arnold Bennett. The essence of "Robbie's" life, however, was the role he played as Wilde's devoted friend and dedicated literary executor. In spite of tantalizing cameos in several of the biographies of Wilde and other late 19th century figures, Ross has been something of an enigma; but this study, which is definitive in nature, throws a great deal of light upon a charming, witty, generous, and loyal individual who had more enemies than he deserved. Drawing upon much unpublished material, Borland has etched a "word picture" of which Ross himself could be proud. In this perceptive and balanced treatment, Ross is certainly not "the foulest and most filthy beast drawing the breath of life" that Lord Alfred Douglas claimed he was; nor was he the degenerate wretch intent upon "spreading Wilde's doctrines among the cheap public" that T.W.H. Crossland maintained he was. That Ross could attract such hatred and yet have been Wilde's devoted friend is in need of explication. Much to her credit, Borland documents her case. Her portrait of Robbie Ross is irradiated by the triumph of friendship and loyalty over the impediments of jealousy and malice.