Review (PDF) Diaries, 1942-1954
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.
File Size: 1317 KB
Print Length: 516 pages
Publisher: John Murray (December 8, 2011)
Publication Date: December 8, 2011
Language: English
ASIN: B006CUYTUY
Text-to-Speech: Enabled
X-Ray: Not Enabled
Word Wise: Enabled
Lending: Not Enabled
Enhanced Typesetting: Enabled
Best Sellers Rank: #1,378,686 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store) #12 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Sheet Music & Scores > Composers > Bloch #304 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Sheet Music & Scores > Historical Period > Modern & 20th Century #6566 in Books > Literature & Fiction > History & Criticism > Regional & Cultural > European > British & Irish
James Lees-Milne, like that other revered diarist from the mid-twentieth-century, Harold Nicolson (who was his friend), has come to be viewed as, if not one of the greatest British diarists of all times, then, certainly, as one of the wittiest and most entertaining. Unlike, Nicolson, though, Lees-Milne lived into the 'nineties. This volume is the reprint of his first diaries and is full to bursting with colorful anecdotes. Here's a sample: "Lord Esher is restless during weekends. Likes to talk. Never reads. Nevertheless is bubbling with fun and jokes; counting the cakes on the tea-table and calculating how many he may eat, and then gorging. Never walks a yard, saying we should hold Sir Edgar Bonham Carter, who was a rugger blue and is now a cripple, as a warning not on any account to take exercise. Says he would rather remain in England and be atom-bombed into a jelly than emigrate to the colonies, blaze trails through the bushvelt and be eaten by scorpions."Now some of you may wonder how you missed seeing the publication of this book. Simple. You live in the literary backwater of the United States and no publisher chose to pick it up. If you had bought it from .uk you would have been in luck. I highly recommend checking out 's sister website across the pond. There's a number of great books featured there, like this one, which are simply not available in the United States.
I've been reading some WWII war years diaries, not sure how I stumbled onto James Lees-Milne, perhaps through looking at books about English country houses. This is a terrific book, not only revealing about himself, but the commentary on the number of enormous homes owned by the gentry who can no longer afford them is a history lesson in itself. Lees-Milne evaluated these properties for possible acquisition by the National Trust, along with surrounding land to preserve the views, and the art and furnishings within. One thing that seemed missing was comment on hardships during the war. Because Lees-Milne was involved in meeting with landed gentry, he also knew people of high social standing. All through the war years there is much notation of dinner parties, teas, and comfortable social events, clearly a slice of English society wasn't suffering too much from wartime shortages. He doesn't comment on that -- maybe he should have. I enjoyed this so much, I ordered the biography Bloch wrote (he edited this diary condensation), and may get around to reading the other versions of the diary. If you're interested in the WWII era in England, country house architecture, and the end of the once-all-powerful aristocracy, you'll like this book. Also a fair amount of restrained comment on his affairs and quick liaisons with men. He must have been one of the first gay/bi diarists to remark upon these interludes and assert that it is not to be ashamed of. That was pretty clear thinking for 1940.
This diary, kept as the author worked for the National Trust in England during the Second World War, is a compulsive read, even for an American unfamiliar with many of the persons mentioned. I highly recommend it.
I have read all the diaries in the past but I purchased this compilation because new material was purportedly included - names of the living that had been excluded upon publication were not included since they were no longer alive. I find no better, livelier picture of British life in the war years than provided by Lees-Milne. He is the Pepys of our time - and the fact that he is chatty, gossipy, yet brilliant in his portraits of people, the houses he evaluated for the National Trust - only makes for a marvelous mix of high and low information about that world. Yes, he can be a bit snobbish, and it amazes me how well he dined and in war torn blitz terrified England but all is forgiven when he evaluates the people he knows and the world around him. I love this book and encourage those who read it to buy the other, later diaries, although I do believe that the war years are the best.
Diaries, 1942-1954 Unpublished London Diaries: A Checklist of unpublished diaries by Londoners and visitors with a Select Bibliography of published diaries (London Record Society) The Conquering Tide: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944: War in the Pacific Islands, 1942-1944 Pacific Crucible: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942: War at Sea in the Pacific, 1941-1942 Old Moore's 2017 Astral Diaries Virgo 2017 (Old Moore's Astral Diaries) FRANKENSTEIN COMICS, VOL. 3: ISSUES #11-12-13-14-15-16-17: Seven Complete Issues Of The Classic 1945-1954 Comic Book Series VINTAGE AUTOMOBILE ADVERTISING 3: 1953-1954: OVER 330 FULL SIZE VINTAGE AUTOMOBILE ADS FROM MAGAZINES AND NEWSPAPERS - LARGE ONE-AD-PER-PAGE FORMAT Essential Alfa Romeo Giulia & Giulietta Coupes & Spiders: The Cars and Their Story 1954-95 A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 (New York Review Books Classics) A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954-1962 The Algerian War 1954-62 (Men-at-Arms) The Memory of Resistance: French Opposition to the Algerian War (1954-1962) (Berg French Studies Series) PBSuccess: The CIA's covert operation to overthrow Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz June-July 1954 (Latin America @ War) Shattered Hope: The Guatemalan Revolution and the United States, 1944-1954 Secret History: The CIA’s Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala 1952-1954 Secret History, Second Edition: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954 Secret History: The CIA's Classified Account of Its Operations in Guatemala, 1952-1954 Terror in the Countryside: Campesino Responses to Political Violence in Guatemala, 1954–1985 (Ohio RIS Latin America Series) The Big Book of Japanese Giant Monster Movies: Vol. 1: 1954-1980 (Volume 1) El Reino del Terror: Un caso insólito vivido durante el reinado de Alfredo Stroessner, dictador de Paraguay 1954 - 1989 (Spanish Edition)
