Augustus Hare Is The Longest Victorian of the Month

Augustus John Cuthbert Hare authored the longest autobiography in the world. The biography comprises six volumes. It is called The Story of My Life.

In 1834, Hare was born into an aristocratic English family, but they lived in Rome. His parents gave him away to his Aunt Maria. She sent him to live with Uncle Julius and Aunt Esther. Uncle Julius and Aunt Esther starved and beat him. Hare finally fled to Oxford to escape. Later, he traveled the world with Aunt Maria, caring for her until her death. She thanked him by depriving him of his family inheritance. So Augustus Hare wrote travel guides instead.

Hare had an old friend called Madame Ernest Bunsen.
One day after her death, in 1903, he, too, died.

A little research shows “he knew Algernon Swinburne and Wallington Hall, where the unpredictable Sir Walter Trevelyan had him served a meal consisting entirely of artichokes and cauliflowers.”

Hare said: “Half the failures in life arise from pulling in one’s horse as he is leaping.”