The Yellow Earl by Douglas Sutherland, £20

THIS is a new edition of a fascinating and thoroughly-researched book that was first published in 1965.

Its Westmorland-born author, Douglas Sutherland, who died in 1995, paints a wonderfully evocative picture of the eccentric and scandalous 5th Earl of Lonsdale.

The aristocrat earned his title of the Yellow Earl because of his insistence on using this colour as often as possible - from his fleet of early Mercedes cars to his racing colours, staff livery and personal railway carriages.

Hugh Lowther was also famous for smoking huge cigars, his generous patronage of numerous charities and, perhaps most memorable of all, his gift of the Lonsdale Belts to the world of boxing. He was renowned as a womaniser and for his love of gambling, a wayward nature which began years before he became an earl.

Not expecting to inherit the Lonsdale title and estate, Hugh joined a travelling circus for a year after leaving Eton. He then moved to America where he enjoyed buffalo hunting. He pawned the inheritance due to him as a second son to have a stab at cattle ranching in Wyoming - but the enterprise failed and he was left virtually penniless.

But in a remarkable twist of fortune, his elder brother unexpectedly died, leaving the Lonsdale estate and its vast fortune in his unsafe hands.

Published by Merlin Books.

ALLAN TUNNINGLEY