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Axel Munthe: The Road to San Michele

Doctoring the record

Bengt Jangfeldt (translated by Harry Watson)
I. B. Tauris, 381pp, £25,

Jane Ridley

Wednesday, 7th May 2008

Jane Ridley reviews Bengt Jangfeldt's biography of Axel Munthe

Meanwhile, he cut a swathe (the author calls this double-entry book-keeping) through the women he met. Ottoline Morrell was besotted by him. He became suddenly improbably rich, presumably as a result of handouts from the Swedish royal family, and built himself a beautiful villa on Capri named San Michele, which he filled with antiques. Henry James, Oscar Wilde — all visited the Swede in his Capri villa.

Aged 50 his life changed again. A detached retina left him almost blind. He needed a carer, so he remarried. His second wife was an Englishwoman named Hilda Pennington Mellor. They had two sons, but Munthe was both absent and unfaithful, and Hilda left him, taking the boys with her, to his lasting regret. As he grew older and his eyesight worsened, he became domineering, bad-tempered and slovenly. The Queen of Sweden corresponded with his wife about his iniquities, but adored him until her dying day. He was at her death bed. His autobiography, The Story of San Michele, was a surprise success, making him a celebrity in his seventies.

Some people thought Munthe was a fake, but most considered him a genius. In reality he was both. He was a liar, a name- dropper and an appalling egocentric. He messed up his own marriages, but he was remarkably acute at helping other people. He only really liked people he felt sorry for — ‘You cannot be a good doctor without pity,’ he once said. A good doctor he most certainly was. Above all, he was an enchanter. Bengt Jangtfeldt has done impressive research to uncover Munthe’s colourful secret life. The book suffers a little from being translated, especially as all the source notes have been eliminated, but this is a compelling account of a remarkable man.

Those days are gone in which romantic novels had heroines called Muriel. Even on first publication 84 years ago, The Crowded Street was not a conventional romantic novel nor Muriel Hammond a conventional heroine — but the former embraces elements of romance, the latter aspects of heroism. The subversion of our expectations of heroism and romance provides the dynamic of Winifred Holtby’s second novel, originally published in 1924.

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