THIS MONTH--

ONE

Kim Moon was the long-suffering wife of Who drummer Keith Moon, who would've drummed a lot less passionately without her. The objet d'art Moonie has just framed in the above photo is a champagne bottle he threw at her one evening. Full Moon by Moonie's minder Dougal Butler is an excellent record of this poignant and amusing household.

TWO

Joan Vollmer Adams Burroughs was the common-law wife of renegade novelist William S. Burroughs, whose writings always reveal the deepest consideration for her. Joan died at a party when Bill, an excellent marksman, attempted to shoot a glass off her head after everyone had had several drinks. Bill's autobiography Junkie reveals their relationship in an understated way, and Women of the Beat Generation by Brenda Knight draws a more complete picture of Joan and of the other women central to the Beat generation.

THREE

Lord Alfred Douglas, known to all his friends as Bosie, was the main inspiration for Oscar Wilde's best work of art-- his life. Although criticized in later years by other members of Wilde's circle for "leading Oscar astray"--meaning that Bosie's bad relationship with his father the Marquess of Queensbury ultimately led to Oscar's imprisonment in Reading Gaol, which left Wilde a broken man--another view is that Oscar aspired to the eccentric and highly-volatile style rampant in the Douglas family for centuries, and simply was no match for it. Bosie was a charming poet and a man of unforgettable personality, probably best revealed in his letters in Bernard Shaw and Alfred Douglas: A Correspondence, out-of-print but available through inter-library loan. Bosie by Rupert Croft-Cooke is a wonderful and extremely well-researched biography written by a personal friend.

FOUR

Anita Pallenberg, former paramour of Keith Richards, inspired numerous songs and was the glue that held the Villa Nellcote together during the recording of Exile on Main Street. Anita first entered the Stones circle as the companion of Brian Jones. Faithfull: An Autobiography by Marianne Faithfull is probably the best introduction to the legend.

FIVE

Helen of Troy. No one really knows what "the face that launched a thousand ships" looked like, but an awful lot of people have tried to describe it, anyway. Start with The Iliad by Homer.

SIX

Louis II de Bourbon, Prince de Conde. Through his generous support of writers like La Fontaine and the intellectual climate that he consistently maintained at his chateau at Chantilly--a haven of free-thinking in an age that by most modern standards was repressively devout--the Prince de Conde was the money that fuelled the muse of most of the noteworthy literature of 17th-century France. He was an extremely popular (quel understatement) general and had a spectacular life, including leading a civil war against his cousin Louis XIV and becoming involved in numerous amorous exploits. Le Grand Cyrus, a multi-volume epic-romantic novel in the fashion of the day, was based upon him. Accounts of Conde's life are not easy to find; most are either recitals of his military career or are in French. Try the Memoirs of the Duc de La Rochefoucauld (author of the celebrated Maxims and lover of Conde's sister) or the Memoirs of the Cardinal de Retz (Retz was one of Conde's enemies, but a very witty one).

SEVEN

Beatrice was first seen by Dante when they were both nine years old, and neither Dante nor Italian literature were ever the same afterwards. Read La Vita Nuova or any volume of The Divine Comedy.

EIGHT

Comte Robert de Montesquiou-Fezensac, a highly-intelligent man celebrated for his wit and his perfectly aesthetic life, personified the best of fin-de-siecle Paris. Montesquiou was the inspiration for Baron de Charlus--who appears in several volumes of Proust's Remembrance of Things Past--and was the idol of the young Jean Cocteau. Prince of Aesthetes by Philippe Jullian is an excellent account of his life.

NINE

Johnny Rotten (now John Lydon) has of course always been his own best muse. Besides the Sex Pistols lyrics that forever changed pop music, Lydon also wrote a marvelous autobiography: Rotten: No Irish, No Blacks, No Dogs, the narrative of which is interspersed with comments by acquaintances. My favorite line: "Some visualize the Pistols era in shades of black and white. It wasn't. Actually, the colors I envision are neon or army dirt green with fluorescent pink--anything that would annoy."