Axel Munthe: The Road to San Michele tells for the first time the riveting life-story of an extraordinary individual, who came to define the times he lived in.

The precociously bright son of a Swedish pharmacist, Axel Munthe worked under Jean Martin Charcot, and in 1880, became the youngest doctor in French history. By the 1890s, he was world-famous for his healing powers, believed by some to be supernatural. He moved in the most colourful and exalted circles of fin-de-siecle Europe, counting amongst his friends Henry James, Howard Carter, Rainer Maria Rilke, Lady Ottoline...