For the seer Tiresias, prophecy set in motion precisely those events that fulfilled the prophecy itself, as in the Oedipus story.

That opera, based a play by Apollinaire, involves a woman, Thérèse, who, wearying of passive femininity, assumes the identity of Tirésias, a conquering general.

Richardson wrote the book’s affectionate preface, hilariously describing the decorator in his later years as the “bouffant Tiresias of latter-day Pimlico—bewigged, caftaned, and outrageous.”