About Stay Me With Flagons: A Book about Wine and Other Things

Maurice Healy’s love letter to wine, and to the wines he enjoyed with friends during his long study of the subject. Healy takes us on a comprehensive tour of Europe, visiting all the key wine regions of the time and commenting on the impact of World War II on wine production. Originally written in 1940, this edition was first published after Healy’s premature death in 1950 with notes from his great friend Ian Maxwell Campbell – amusing asides that show how the two often disagreed on the subject of wine! An elegiac yet often humorous study of wine, as readable now as it was 70 years ago.

ABOUT THE ACADEMIE DU VIN LIBRARY CLASSIC EDITIONS SERIES

The Classic Editions breathe new life into some of the finest wine-related titles written in the English language over the last 150 years. Although these books are very much products of their time – a time when the world of fine wine was confined mostly to the frontiers of France and the Iberian Peninsula and a First Growth Bordeaux or Grand Cru Burgundy wouldn't be beyond the average purse – together they recapture a world of convivial, enthusiastic amateurs and larger-than-life characters whose love of fine vintages mirrored that of life itself. Many of the titles are still much in demand, as a glance on Amazon will show. The Académie du Vin Library is proud to be republishing them, along with insightful introductions by our favourite wine writers of the present day.

Maurice F. Healy BL, MC (1887–1943) was an Irish lawyer and author, who is best remembered for his legal memoir The Old Munster Circuit. He was born in Cork, son of the well-known solicitor Maurice Healy and nephew of Timothy Michael Healy, the first Governor-General of the Irish Free State. Maurice at one point stood for Parliament as a candidate for West Waterford. After the Irish War of Independence, while several of his close relatives became prominent political figures in the Irish Free State, he chose to practice at the English Bar. He was made King's Counsel in 1931. He became Recorder of Coventry in 1941; it was suggested this might be the prelude to a High Court judgeship, but any such hope was cut short by his premature death. He wrote celebrated books on wine - Claret and the White Wines of Bordeaux (1934), and Stay Me With Flagons (1940). With André Simon (who referred to Healy as 'my dearly beloved disciple') and others, he founded the Saintsbury Club in 1931, which still meets today, reportedly stating that it should be created ‘to perpetuate and honour his name’ (Professor George Saintsbury). A legendary wit and conversationalist, Healy also made a number of celebrated BBC broadcasts during the war years.

• Weight 0.511 kg
• Dimensions 153 x 216 mm