Funny, indiscreet, candid, touching and sharply observed, this second compilation from James Lees-Milne's celebrated diaries covers his life during his sixties and early seventies, when he was living in Gloucestershire with his formidable wife Alvilde. It vividly portrays life on the Badminton estate of the eccentric Duke of Beaufort, meetings with many friends (including John Betjeman, Bruce Chatwin and the Mitford sisters) and the diarist's varied emotional experiences. Having made his name as the National Trust's country houses expert and a writer on architecture, he now established himself as a novelist and biographer. With some misgivings he published his wartime diaries, little imagining that it was as a diarist that he would achieve lasting fame.
The diaries of the National Trust's country house expert James Lees-Milne (1908-97) have been hailed as 'one of the treasures of contemporary English literature'. The first of three, this volume, which includes interesting material omitted when the diaries were originally published during the author's lifetime, covers the years 1942 to 1954, beginning with his wartime visits to hard-pressed country house owners, and ending with his marriage to the exotic Alvilde Chaplin.
The twelfth and final volume of James Lees-Milne's magnificent diary covers the last five years of his life, until a few weeks before his death at the age of eighty-nine. Old age and infirmity have not diminished his interest in life, and he expresses sharp and original views on everything from modern architecture to New Labour. After the loss of his bossy but beloved wife Alvilde, he devotes himself to visiting friends, observing their habits and relishing their gossip and anecdotes. Whether describing an afternoon with the Prince of Wales, a week-end at Chatsworth, a nostalgic return to the scenes of his youth or a day at the latest London exhibitions, he displays the same mixture of candour, waspish wit, eloquent exasperation and human understanding which has delighted his readers since the first of these volumes appeared in 1975.
The eighth volume of James Lees-Milne's acclaimed diaries is unlike its predecessors, in that it shows Lees-Milne developing an overwhelming tendresse for a much younger man. As candid in writing about himself as about others, he records the doubt, happiness, guilt and other turbulence that accompany an emotion he did not expect to feel again. This is the first volume to be edited not by the diarist himself but his literary executor, the friend in question. The text deals with much else besides love and its difficulties. Lees-Milne writes the biography of his friend Harold Nicolson, sometimes in the process worsting his publisher, the formidable Norah Smallwood of Chatto & Windus. With Derek Hill (but without an importunate Bruce Chatwin) he twice visits Mount Athos, recording the delights and discomforts of a spiritual journey to the Holy Mountain. Both the man and his period are irresistibly present in these pages, as one minute he is exasperated by Labour's winter of discontent, or predicts incineration by Soviet attack, and in the next recreates the values and friendships of an earlier, gentler age. Here he is as engaging and readable as ever, mixing candour and an often malicious wit with generosity of spirit and sympathy for human frailty. As always, he writes with the sharp eye of a novelist and is amusingly observant about inconstancies of feeling and opinion, especially his own. Diffident, penetrating, thoughtful, prejudiced, not always admirable in his own self-estimation, he inspires the same affection in print as he did in life.
Diarist James Lees-Milne presents sketches of fourteen of his friends who unknowingly helped form his values. They include Vita Sackville-West, Sacheverell Sitwell, James Pope-Hennessy and Henry Yorke.
In this first volume of James Lees-Milne's addictive diaries, the author, discharged from the Army for health reasons, has returned to work for the National Trust - then with a memership of only 6,000 and owning only about half a dozen houses open to the public. Staff and offices have been removed to West Wycombe Park, in Buckinghamshire. He describes his employment as a 'combination of hard labour and sheer fun'. It certainly involves some quirky encounters. -- Book cover.
In the ninth volume of James Lees-Milne's diaries, the ardour towards their eventual editor M, has cooled to a more durable tenderness. There is no change however, in the sharpness of his observation. While his bride's finger waits outstretched, Kenneth Clark discusses appreciatively with the priest the Coptic wedding ring he has chosen. An old and demanding Hillaire Belloc sets himself alight and has to be rolled on the bathroom floor. Diana Mosley tells how the Kaiser, visiting Eton, asked to have a boy swished for his entertainment. Zita Jungman, a former Bright Young Thing of the 20s, is so far behind with her newspaper reading that she learns months later that she has become a widow. As always, death is a major character. Master, the Lees-Milnes' ducal landlord, is dug up by hunt protesters following his burial. After walking across fields in driving rain to the funeral of John Betjeman - the best man who ever lived and the most lovable - Lees-Milne sits in the almost pitch dark church, just able to read the prayers by the light of a single window. He himself hopes to die to the music of Orfeo.
In eight illuminating chapters we have the history of the Eternal City-Ancient Roman, Early Christian, Romanesque, Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo-the history of the buildings themselves, and Lees-Milne's inspired description and criticism of them as architectural masterpieces.
This volume of James Lees-Milne's incomparable diaries sees him cope with publication of the earliest two, Ancestral Voices and Prophesying Peace. Most friends are amused and delighted, a few claim to be mortified. Even comparisons with Pepys, however, can scarcely calm the author's misgivings." "These diaries like the others are full of surprises. Over dinner, Winston Churchill re-enacts the battle of Jutland with wine glasses and decanters, puffing cigar smoke to represent the guns. Anthony Powell admits an attraction to girls who look as if they might have slept out for a week, perhaps under a hedge. The old Princess Royal's helpless laughter is quenched by her maid, who hurriedly reads random verses from the Bible. Nor is JL-M's eye less sharp, as he observes Bob Boothby's pleasure in describing the drawbacks of fame, or Graham Sutherland's fear of being too gracious to the undeserving." "Logan Pearsall Smith once wrote that we need a little malice to prevent our affection for those we love from becoming flat. These diaries perfectly illustrate that truth."--BOOK JACKET.Title Summary field provided by Blackwell North America, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The autobiography of James Lees-Milne. We see him as a flimsy, pious child re-enacting with rotten fish before his astonished father the story of Tobias, while the angel makes off with the loot. We watch him start at prep school with an entrance so absurd it haunts him until the day he leaves. Disgraceful scenes at a roadhouse in Bray led to an early exit from Eton, and he drives his Mitford friends' egregious Farv almost to apoplexy.
In this penultimate volume, James Lees-Milne is as engaging and readable as ever; his sharpness and wit are undiminished as he forges into his eighties. He discusses architecture with the Prince of Wales and royal mistresses with Princess Michael of Kent. As the grand old man of country house conservation, he becomes a media celebrity, but he declines a C.B.E. and refuses to be photographed by Lord Snowdon. He reads in The Times of the death of the boy who seduced him at Eton, and publishes a novel about a German count who seduces first an English schoolboy, then the boy's mother. Candid, touching, penetrating and often hilariously funny, these diaries chronicle a way of life and a view of the world that are rapidly vanishing.
In 1936, James Lees-Milne became Country Houses secretary of the infant National Trust. Already fired with compassion for ancient architecture, 'so vulnerable and transient', he could now pursue what amounted to a vocation. His arrival increased the Trust's permanent staff to four, a close-knit community, somewhat cramped in a stuffy office facing a shunting yard in Victoria. The Trust at that time owned only two country houses, one ruined and the other empty, but changing conditions, accelerated by the War, now brought a stream of offers. James Lees-Milne's chief task was to visit, as ambassador and aesthetic assessor, would-be donors in their domains. So young a man arriving often on a bicycle must have astonished those patrician figures, who themselves might be survivors from the Victorian age. Nor was his task easy: it involved legal thickets, intricate family squabbles, dilemmas of artistic judgement, and owners who, in their fastnesses, might have grown very eccentric indeed. In this book James Lees-Milne describes fourteen houses, including Knole, Blickling, Stourhead and Cotehele. He brings the buildings, their owners and pasts brilliantly to life and tells the sometimes cl
Those who know him already will be prepared for the unexpected, and they will not be disappointed. Those new to him may be surprised to find - along with his honesty and delicious perceptiveness - the almost surreal oddness of some of his anecdotes. The thoughts, pleasures and regrets of those who appear in these pages are similarly fascinating. The Prince of Wales feels that the mantle of John Betjeman has fallen on his own shoulders, Diana Mosley explains why Macmillan rather than Ribbentrop should have been hanged after the war, Mick Jagger displays an extensive knowledge of Shakespeare, and Alan Clark admits he is bored stiff by his life in politics. JLM unites a sensibility uniquely his own with inconsistencies and prejudices of a kind we all share. He combines wit, acerbity and compassion, and is as delightful a companion in print as in life.
Part of a series of eight volumes of diaries kept by James Lees-Milne, this text covers the years from 1973-74 and offers a fastidious, penetrating and humourous view of a world now largely vanished.
Funny, indiscreet, candid, touching and sharply observed, this second compilation from James Lees-Milne's celebrated diaries covers his life during his sixties and early seventies, when he was living in Gloucestershire with his formidable wife Alvilde. It vividly portrays life on the Badminton estate of the eccentric Duke of Beaufort, meetings with many friends (including John Betjeman, Bruce Chatwin and the Mitford sisters) and the diarist's varied emotional experiences. Having made his name as the National Trust's country houses expert and a writer on architecture, he now established himself as a novelist and biographer. With some misgivings he published his wartime diaries, little imagining that it was as a diarist that he would achieve lasting fame.
This final compilation from James Lees-Milne's celebrated diaries covers the last fourteen years of his life, when he was living on the Duke of Beaufort's Badminton estate. Old age and infirmity have not dimmed his sharpness, literary skill or interest in the world around him, and his reflection on people, places and experiences are as vivid as ever. A tour of the Cotsworlds makes him ruefully aware of the yuppy trends of the Thatcher era, while he predicts that the New Labour victory will bring 'a descent into American-style vulgarity and yob culture'. Witty, waspish, poignant and candid, James Lees-Milne's last diaries contain as much to delight as the first, and confirm his reputation as one of the great commentators of his times.
This biography aims to provide a detailed account of the life of William Beckford and his collections. Perhaps best known for his building of Fonthill Abbey, he was also an aesthete, bibliophile, builder, connoisseur, gardener, musician, patron, traveller, wit and writer. He was a collector of paintings, furniture, books and works of art of every description. Author Lees-Milne aims to give a vivid impression of this 18th-century Englishman and his tastes.
The diaries of the National Trust's country house expert James Lees-Milne (1908-97) have been hailed as 'one of the treasures of contemporary English literature'. The first of three, this volume, which includes interesting material omitted when the diaries were originally published during the author's lifetime, covers the years 1942 to 1954, beginning with his wartime visits to hard-pressed country house owners, and ending with his marriage to the exotic Alvilde Chaplin.
Think you know about British history and the causes of the First World War? Think again. This fascinating and gripping study of events at the turn of the Twentieth Century is a remarkable insight into how political and social factors that we widely accept to be the causes of The Great War, were really just a construct put together by a very small, but powerful, political elite... 'Thought-provoking . . . Docherty and Macgregor do not mince their words . . . their arguments are powerful' -- Britain at War 'Simply astonishing' -- ***** Reader review 'Very illuminating' -- ***** Reader review 'You simply MUST read this book' -- ***** Reader review 'This is a page-turner' -- ***** Reader review *********************************************************************************** Hidden History uniquely exposes those responsible for the First World War. It reveals how accounts of the war's origins have been deliberately falsified to conceal the guilt of the secret cabal of very rich and powerful men in London responsible for the most heinous crime perpetrated on humanity. For ten years, they plotted the destruction of Germany as the first stage of their plan to take control of the world. The assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand was no chance happening. It lit a fuse that had been carefully set through a chain of command stretching from Sarajevo through Belgrade and St Petersburg to that cabal in London. Our understanding of these events has been firmly trapped in a web of falsehood and duplicity carefully constructed by the victors at Versailles in 1919 and maintained by compliant historians ever since. The official version is fatally flawed, warped by the volume of evidence they destroyed or concealed from public view. Hidden History poses a tantalising challenge. The authors ask only that you examine the evidence they lay before you . . .
The definitive biography of this brilliant polymath--director of the National Gallery, author, patron of the arts, social lion, and singular pioneer of television--that also tells the story of the arts in the twentieth century through his astonishing life. Kenneth Clark's thirteen-part 1969 television series, Civilisation, established him as a globally admired figure. Clark was prescient in making this series: the upheavals of the century, the Cold War among others, convinced him of the power of barbarism and the fragility of culture. He would burnish his image with two memoirs that artfully omitted the more complicated details of his life. Now, drawing on a vast, previously unseen archive, James Stourton reveals the formidable intellect and the private man behind the figure who effortlessly dominated the art world for more than half a century: his privileged upbringing, his interest in art history beginning at Oxford, his remarkable early successes. At 27 he was keeper of Western Art at the Ashmolean in Oxford and at 29, the youngest director of The National Gallery. During the war he arranged for its entire collection to be hidden in slate mines in Wales and organized packed concerts of classical music at the Gallery to keep up the spirits of Londoners during the bombing. WWII helped shape his belief that art should be brought to the widest audience, a social and moral position that would inform the rest of his career. Television became a means for this message when he was appointed the first chairman of the Independent Television Authority. Stourton reveals the tortuous state of his marriage during and after the war, his wife's alcoholism, and the aspects of his own nature that he worked to keep hidden. A superb work of biography, Kenneth Clark is a revelation of its remarkable subject.
The discerning traveler's guide to the very finest experiences that London has to offer James Sherwood, author of a number of definitive publications on English sartorial style, is the quintessential man-about-town. In this witty, opinionated, and discerning guide to London, he draws on many years of partaking in the very best that the metropolis has to offer. Whether you want to breakfast like a king, drink cocktails in the company of sophisticated British personalities, or shop for antique jewelry, this handy volume will take you there. Beautifully packaged and produced, with stylish line illustrations, James Sherwood’s Discriminating Guide to London includes information, advice, and a sardonic wit not to be found elsewhere. Sherwood’s supreme taste coupled with his firsthand knowledge of some of the most exclusive, exciting spots in London makes this guide a must-have for city slickers and jet setters alike. James Sherwood’s Discriminating Guide to London is inspired by a 1970s publication of the same name by another James Sherwood (no relation) who is today the owner of the Orient-Simplon Express and luxury hotels and restaurants around the world. The older Sherwood contributes a foreword to this new guide.
William and Georgina Cowper-Temple were significant figures in nineteenth-century Britain. William Cowper-Temple, later Lord Mount Temple, was private secretary to one Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, and minister in the government of Lord Palmerston. He sought to improve the nation's health and rebuild London, and famously amended the Education Act in 1870. His charismatic wife, Georgina, was also champion of diverse social and moral reforms, and friend to such worthies as John Ruskin, Dante Gabriel Rossetti, Frances Power Cobbe and Mrs Oscar Wilde. In the first full-length biography of this distinguished couple, James Gregory explores the Cowper-Temples' roles within Whig-Liberalism, philanthropy and social reform, and provides a fascinating insight into the private lives of two aristocrats dedicated to using their powers of influence to alleviate problems in Victorian society.
A delightful insight into an eclectic life' The Daily Telegraph 'Very funny and astute . . . a loathly feast for royal-watchers' Hilary Mantel, New Statesman Books of the Year 2018 'A complete delight, conjuring up, with a few sharp strokes of the pen, a mad, exotic species from a world gone by' Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday 'Gloriously indiscreet . . . the best royal book ever' Harry Mount, Financial Times * * * When James Pope-Hennessy began his work on Queen Mary's official biography, it opened the door to meetings with royalty, court members and retainers around Europe. The series of candid observations, secrets and indiscretions contained in his notes were to be kept private for 50 years. Now published in full for the first time and edited by the highly admired royal biographer Hugo Vickers, this is a riveting, often hilarious portrait of the eccentric aristocracy of a bygone age. Giving much greater insight into Queen Mary than the official version, and including sharply observed encounters with, among others, the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, the Duke of Gloucester, and a young Queen Elizabeth, The Quest for Queen Mary is set to be a classic of royal publishing.
“The ultimate literary bucket list.” —THE WASHINGTON POST Celebrate the pleasure of reading and the thrill of discovering new titles in an extraordinary book that’s as compulsively readable, entertaining, surprising, and enlightening as the 1,000-plus titles it recommends. Covering fiction, poetry, science and science fiction, memoir, travel writing, biography, children’s books, history, and more, 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die ranges across cultures and through time to offer an eclectic collection of works that each deserve to come with the recommendation, You have to read this. But it’s not a proscriptive list of the “great works”—rather, it’s a celebration of the glorious mosaic that is our literary heritage. Flip it open to any page and be transfixed by a fresh take on a very favorite book. Or come across a title you always meant to read and never got around to. Or, like browsing in the best kind of bookshop, stumble on a completely unknown author and work, and feel that tingle of discovery. There are classics, of course, and unexpected treasures, too. Lists to help pick and choose, like Offbeat Escapes, or A Long Climb, but What a View. And its alphabetical arrangement by author assures that surprises await on almost every turn of the page, with Cormac McCarthy and The Road next to Robert McCloskey and Make Way for Ducklings, Alice Walker next to Izaac Walton. There are nuts and bolts, too—best editions to read, other books by the author, “if you like this, you’ll like that” recommendations , and an interesting endnote of adaptations where appropriate. Add it all up, and in fact there are more than six thousand titles by nearly four thousand authors mentioned—a life-changing list for a lifetime of reading. “948 pages later, you still want more!” —THE WASHINGTON POST
In eight illuminating chapters we have the history of the Eternal City-Ancient Roman, Early Christian, Romanesque, Renaissance, Baroque, and Rococo-the history of the buildings themselves, and Lees-Milne's inspired description and criticism of them as architectural masterpieces.
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