Download or read book Henry Chips Channon The Diaries Volume 2 written by Chips Channon and published by Random House. This book was released on 2021-09-09 with total page 1081 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The second volume of the remarkable, Sunday Times bestselling diaries of Chips Channon. This second volume of the bestselling diaries of Henry 'Chips' Channon takes us from the heady aftermath of the Munich agreement, when the Prime Minister so admired by Chips was credited with having averted a general European conflagration, through the rapid unravelling of appeasement, and on to the tribulations of the early years of the Second World War. It closes with a moment of hope, as Channon, in recording the fall of Mussolini in July 1943, reflects: 'The war must be more than half over.' For much of this period, Channon is genuinely an eye-witness to unfolding events. He reassures Neville Chamberlain as he fights for his political life in May 1940. He chats to Winston Churchill while the two men inspect the bombed-out chamber of the House of Commons a few months later. From his desk at the Foreign Office he charts the progress of the war. But with the departure of his boss 'Rab' Butler to the Ministry of Education, and Channon's subsequent exclusion from the corridors of power, his life changes - and with it the preoccupations and tone of the diaries. The conduct of the war remains a constant theme, but more personal preoccupations come increasingly to the fore. As he throws himself back into the pleasures of society, he records his encounters with the likes of Noël Coward, Prince Philip, General de Gaulle and Oscar Wilde's erstwhile lover Lord Alfred Douglas. He describes dinners with members of European royal dynasties, and recounts gossip and scandal about the great, the good and the less good. And he charts the implosion of his marriage and his burgeoning, passionate friendship with a young officer on Wavell's staff. These are diaries that bring a whole epoch vividly to life.
Download or read book Henry Chips Channon The Diaries Volume 1 written by Chips Channon and published by Random House. This book was released on 2021-03-04 with total page 1032 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Sunday Times bestselling edition of Chips Channon's remarkable diaries. Born in Chicago in 1897, 'Chips' Channon settled in England after the Great War, married into the immensely wealthy Guinness family, and served as Conservative MP for Southend-on-Sea from 1935 until his death in 1958. His career was unremarkable. His diaries are quite the opposite. Elegant, gossipy and bitchy by turns, they are the unfettered observations of a man who went everywhere and who knew everybody. Whether describing the antics of London society in the interwar years, or the growing scandal surrounding his close friends Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson during the abdication crisis, or the mood in the House of Commons in the lead up to the Munich crisis, his sense of drama and his eye for the telling detail are unmatched. These are diaries that bring a whole epoch vividly to life. A heavily abridged and censored edition of the diaries was published in 1967. Only now, sixty years after Chips's death, can an extensive text be shared. ________________________________ 'Chips perfectly embodied the qualities vital to the task: a capacious ear for gossip, a neat turn of phrase, a waspish desire to tell all, and easy access to the highest social circles across Europe.[...] Blending Woosterish antics with a Lady Bracknellesque capacity for acid comment. Replete with fascinating insights.' Jesse Norman, Financial Times
Download or read book Chips written by Henry Channon and published by Phoenix. This book was released on 2000-11 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sir Henry "Chips" Channon's position as a Member of Parliament allowed him entree to a privileged world of socializing, politics, and historic events. The years covered in this volume, 1934-53, recall a vanished world in which every social and public figure of the day made the party, joining in endless gossip. Culled from some three million words from the original diaries, the editor's selection gives us the pivotal moments and characters of history, etched indelibly by a master observer. "How sharp an eye? What neat malice! How, in their fashion, well written and truthful and honest they are!"--"Malcolm Muggeridge, Observer."
Download or read book Henry Chips Channon The Diaries Volume 3 1943 57 written by Chips Channon and published by Random House. This book was released on 2022-09-08 with total page 1201 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The third and final volume of the remarkable Sunday Times bestselling diaries of Sir Henry 'Chips' Channon ___________________________________________ 'An utterly addictive glimpse of London high society and politics in the 40s and 50s.' Robert Harris 'An instant classic . . . quite simply the greatest social and political diaries of the 20th century.' Daily Telegraph 'Rich, exuberant, copious and shatteringly honest.' Spectator 'A scurrilous read. Fascinating. Gripping!' Alan Titchmarsh 'Chips writes with such vividness that one feels one is living each day in his exalted company.' The Oldie _______________________________________ This final volume of the unexpurgated diaries of Sir Henry 'Chips' Channon begins as the Second World War is turning in the Allies' favour. It ends with Chips descending into poor health but still able to turn a pointed phrase about the political events that swirl around him and the great and the good with whom he mingles. Throughout these final fourteen years Chips assiduously describes events in and around Westminster, gossiping about individual MPs' ambitions and indiscretions, but also rising powerfully to the occasion to capture the mood of the House on VE Day or the ceremony of George VI's funeral. His energies, though, are increasingly absorbed by a private life that at times reaches Byzantine levels of complexity. We encounter the London of the theatre and the cinema, peopled by such figures as John Gielgud, Laurence Olivier, Vivien Leigh and Douglas Fairbanks Jr, as well as a seemingly endless grand parties at which Chips might well rub shoulders with Cecil Beaton, the Mountbattens, or any number of dethroned European monarchs. He has been described as 'The greatest British diarist of the 20th century'. This final volume fully justifies that accolade.
Download or read book The Duff Cooper Diaries written by John Julius Norwich and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2014-03-20 with total page 780 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The long awaited and highly revealing diaries of the politician, diplomat, and socialite (married to Lady Diana Cooper) 'This is a fabulous, jaw-dropping read' SUNDAY TIMES 'Duff Cooper was as close to the action as anyone during the dramatic events of the mid-20th century. He was also comically priapic, committing enough sexual indiscretions to fill a dozen diaries' SUNDAY TELEGRAPH 'Fascinating for two things: their testament to an exhilarating century and their witness to a vanished age of power and privilege ... What a man' OBSERVER Duff Cooper was a first-rate witness of just about every significant event from 1914 to 1950. His diary includes some magnificent set pieces - as a young soldier at the end of WWI, as a politician during the General Strike of 1926, as King Edward VIII's friend at the time of the Abdication, and from Paris after the liberation in 1944, when he became British ambassador. If Duff Cooper's name has dimmed in the 50 years since his death, publication of these diaries will bring him to the fore once again. His family have long resisted publication - indeed Duff Cooper's nephew, the publisher Rupert Hart-Davis, was so shocked by the sexual revelations that he suggested to John Julius Norwich that it might be best for all concerned if they were burnt. Now, superbly edited by John Julius Norwich, who familial link ensures all kinds of additional information as footnotes, these diaries join the ranks.
Download or read book Malice in Wonderland written by Hugo Vickers and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-10-05 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The witty and perceptive diaries kept by Cecil Beaton's authorized biographer during his many fascinating encounters with extraordinary—often legendary—characters in his search for the real Cecil Beaton. Hugo Vickers's life took a dramatic turn in 1979 when the legendary Sir Cecil Beaton invited him to be his authorised biographer. The excitement of working with the famous photographer was dashed only days later when Cecil Beaton died. But the journey had begun - Vickers was entrusted with Beaton's papers, diaries and, most importantly, access to his friends and contemporaries. In Malice in Wonderland, Vickers shares excerpts from his personal diaries kept during this period. For five years, Vickers travelled the world and talked to some of the most fascinating and important social and cultural figures of the time, including royalty such as the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, film stars such as Grace Kelly, Audrey Hepburn and Julie Andrews, writers such as Truman Capote, and photographers such as Irving Penn and Horst. And not only Beaton's friends - Vickers sought out the enemies too, notably Irene Selznick. He was taken under the wings of Lady Diana Cooper, Clarissa Avon and Diana Vreeland. Drawn into Beaton's world and accepted by its members, Vickers the emerging biographer also began his own personal adventure. The outsider became the insider - Beaton's friends became his friends. Malice in Wonderland is a fascinating portrait of a now disappeared world, and vividly and sensitively portrays some of its most fascinating characters as we travel with Vickers on his quest.
Download or read book Poet of Revolution written by Nicholas McDowell and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2022-10-25 with total page 512 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A groundbreaking biography of Milton’s formative years that provides a new account of the poet’s political radicalization John Milton (1608–1674) has a unique claim on literary and intellectual history as the author of both Paradise Lost, the greatest narrative poem in English, and prose defences of the execution of Charles I that influenced the French and American revolutions. Tracing Milton’s literary, intellectual, and political development with unprecedented depth and understanding, Poet of Revolution is an unmatched biographical account of the formation of the mind that would go on to create Paradise Lost—but would first justify the killing of a king. Biographers of Milton have always struggled to explain how the young poet became a notorious defender of regicide and other radical ideas such as freedom of the press, religious toleration, and republicanism. In this groundbreaking intellectual biography of Milton’s formative years, Nicholas McDowell draws on recent archival discoveries to reconcile at last the poet and polemicist. He charts Milton’s development from his earliest days as a London schoolboy, through his university life and travels in Italy, to his emergence as a public writer during the English Civil War. At the same time, McDowell presents fresh, richly contextual readings of Milton’s best-known works from this period, including the “Nativity Ode,” “L’Allegro” and “Il Penseroso,” Comus, and “Lycidas.” Challenging biographers who claim that Milton was always a secret radical, Poet of Revolution shows how the events that provoked civil war in England combined with Milton’s astonishing programme of self-education to instil the beliefs that would shape not only his political prose but also his later epic masterpiece.
Download or read book James Lees Milne written by Michael Bloch and published by John Murray Publishers. This book was released on 2009 with total page 440 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James Lees-Milne is remembered for his work for the National Trust, rescuing some of England's greatest architectural treasures. Michael Bloch portrays a life rich in contradictions, in which an unassuming youth overtook more dazzling contemporaries to emerge as a leading figure in the fields of conservation and letters.
Download or read book Noble Ambitions written by Adrian Tinniswood and published by Basic Books. This book was released on 2021-09-21 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A rollicking tour of the English country home after World War II, when swinging London collided with aristocratic values As the sun set slowly on the British Empire, its mansions fell and rose. Ancient families were reduced to demolishing the parts of their stately homes they could no longer afford, dukes and duchesses desperately clung to their ancestral seats, and a new class of homeowners bought their way into country life. A delicious romp, Noble Ambitions pulls us into these crumbling halls of power, leading us through the juiciest bits of postwar aristocratic history—from Mick Jagger dancing at deb balls to the scandals of Princess Margaret. Capturing the spirit of the age, historian Adrian Tinniswood proves that the country house is not only an iconic symbol, but a lens through which to understand the shifting fortunes of the British elite in an era of monumental social change.
Download or read book The Glorious Guinness Girls written by Emily Hourican and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2021-05-04 with total page 400 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From London to Ireland during the 1920s, this glorious, gripping, and richly textured story takes us to the heart of the remarkable real-life story of the Guinness Girls—perfect for fans of Downton Abbey and Julian Fellowes' Belgravia. Descendants of the founder of the Guinness beer empire, they were the toast of 1920s high society, darlings of the press, with not a care in the world. But Felicity knows better. Sent to live with them as a child because her mother could no longer care for her, she grows up as the sisters’ companion. Both an outsider and a part of the family, she witnesses the complex lives upstairs and downstairs, sees the compromises and sacrifices beneath the glamorous surface. Then, at a party one summer’s evening, something happens that sends shock waves through the entire household. Inspired by a remarkable true story and fascinating real events, The Glorious Guinness Girls is an unforgettable novel about the haves and have-nots, one that will make you ask if where you find yourself is where you truly belong.
Download or read book Five Love Affairs and a Friendship written by Anne de Courcy and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2022-04-28 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Dazzlingly beautiful, highly intelligent and an extraordinary force of energy, Nancy Cunard was an icon of the Jazz Age, said to have inspired half the poets and novelists of the twenties. Born into a life of wealth and privilege, yet one in which she barely saw her parents, Nancy rebelled against expectations and pursued a life in the arts. She sought the constant company of artists, writers, poets and painters, first in London's Soho and Mayfair, and then in the glamorous cafes of 1920s Paris. This is the remarkable story of Nancy's Paris life, filled with art, sex and alcohol. She became a muse to Wyndham Lewis, Constantin Brâncusi sculpted her, Man Ray photographed her and she played tennis with Ernest Hemingway. She had many love affairs, the most significant of which are included in this book: the American poet Ezra Pound, the novelists Aldous Huxley and Michael Arlen, the French poet Louis Aragon and finally and controversially the black American pianist Henry Crowder, with whom she ran her printing press in Paris. She was also shaped by her lifelong friendship with George Moore, her mother's lover. This tempestuous tale of passion and intrigue is as much a portrait of twenties Paris as it is the story of an extraordinary woman who defined her age.
Download or read book King s Counsellor written by Alan Lascelles and published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. This book was released on 2021-09-14 with total page 496 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Assistant Private Secretary to four monarchs, 'Tommy' Lascelles had a ringside seat from which to observe the workings of the royal household and Downing Street during the first half of the 20th century. These fascinating diaries begin with Edward VIII's abdication and end with George VI's death and his daughter Elizabeth's Coronation. In between we see George VI at work and play, a portrait more intimate than any other previously published. This compelling account also includes Princess Margaret's relationship with Peter Townsend, and throws an intriguing new light on the way in which King George VI and Winston Churchill worked together during the Second World War.
Download or read book Margot Asquith s Great War Diary 1914 1916 written by Michael Brock and published by OUP Oxford. This book was released on 2014-06-26 with total page 566 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Margot Asquith was the wife of Herbert Henry Asquith, the Liberal Prime Minister who led Britain into war in August 1914. Asquith's early war leadership drew praise from all quarters, but in December 1916 he was forced from office in a palace coup, and replaced by Lloyd George, whose career he had done so much to promote. Margot had both the literary gifts and the vantage point to create, in her diary of these years, a compelling record of her husband's fall from grace. An intellectual socialite with the airs, if not the lineage, of an aristocrat, Margot was both a spectator and a participant in the events she describes, and in public affairs could be an ally or an embarrassment - sometimes both. Her diary vividly evokes the wartime milieu as experienced in 10 Downing Street, and describes the great political battles that lay behind the warfare on the Western Front, in which Asquith would himself lose his eldest son. The writing teems with character sketches, including Lloyd George ('a natural adventurer who may make or mar himself any day'), Churchill ('Winston's vanity is septic'), and Kitchener ('a man brutal by nature and by pose'). Never previously published, this candid, witty, and worldly diary gives us a unique insider's view of the centre of power, and an introduction by Michael Brock, in addition to explanatory footnotes and appendices written with his wife Eleanor, provide the context and background information we need to appreciate them to the full.
Download or read book The Hong Kong Diaries written by Chris Patten and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2022-06-21 with total page 473 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The diaries of the last British Governor of Hong Kong, published on the 25th anniversary of the handover In June 1992 Chris Patten went to Hong Kong as the last British governor, to try to prepare it not (as other British colonies over the decades) for independence, but for handing back in 1997 to the Chinese, from whom most of its territory had been leased 99 years previously. Over the next five years he kept this diary, which describes in detail how Hong Kong was run as a British colony and what happened as the handover approached. The book gives unprecedented insights into negotiating with the Chinese, about how the institutions of democracy in Hong Kong were (belatedly) strengthened and how Patten sought to ensure that a strong degree of self-government would continue after 1997. Unexpectedly, his opponents included not only the Chinese themselves, but some British businessmen and civil service mandarins upset by Patten's efforts, for whom political freedom and the rule of law in Hong Kong seemed less important than keeping on the right side of Beijing. The book concludes with an account of what has happened in Hong Kong since the handover, a powerful assessment of recent events and Patten's reflections on how to deal with China - then and now.
Download or read book Closet Queens written by Michael Bloch and published by Little, Brown Book Group. This book was released on 2015-05-28 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Closet Queens is a fascinating study of gay men in twentieth century British politics, from Lord Rosebery and Lord Beauchamp in Edwardian times to Michael Portillo and Peter Mandelson in our own era. As all homosexual activity was illegal until 1967, and exposure meant ruin and disgrace, such men were obliged either to repress their sexual feelings or else lead double lives, indulging their tastes secretly while respectably married with children. The need to cover up their sexuality, while causing problems and disappointments, often sharpened their skills as politicians - they were masters of secrecy and subterfuge, and knew how to take calculated risks. An entertaining and insightful account of some extraordinary personalities, Closet Queens opens doors into a hidden world.
Download or read book The Harold Nicolson Diaries written by Harold Nicolson and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2024-08-29 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of the great 20th century political diaries 'Brilliant, riveting stuff' TRIBUNE 'One stops to marvel at the achievement. Honesty, decency, modesty, magnanimity, are stamped on every page, as evident as the wit' EVENING STANDARD 'A tremendous read' SPECTATOR Harold Nicolson was one of the three great political diarists of the 20th century (along with Chips Channon and Alan Clark). Nicolson was an MP (Conservative, 1935-45, who also flirted with Labour after WWII). He had previously been in the Foreign Office and attended the Paris Peace Conference in 1919, and material from this period is included in this new edition for the first time. Nicolson never achieved high office, but rarely a day went by when he didn't record what was going on at Westminster. He socialised widely, was married to the poet and author Vita Sackville-West, and together they created the famous garden at Sissinghurst. Both were bi-sexuals and had affairs outside their marriage. This new edition also draws on diary entries and letters previously considered too sensitive for inclusion. The diversity of Harold Nicolson's interests and the irony in his writing make his diary a highly entertaining record of his life and times, as well as a document of great historical value.
Download or read book The Loved and Envied written by Enid Bagnold and published by Garden City, N.Y. Doubleday 1951.. This book was released on 1951 with total page 298 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At fifty-three Lady Ruby Maclean had not lost her beauty for which she had been loved by many men and envied by her colorless daughter Miranda, her friend Cora and her women relatives. Through flash-backs, the life of each character is related. A curious detachment presents a depressing picture of people whose fruitful years are over and who face old age with varying degrees of hopelessness.
