Harold Nicolson

[Flosshilde]

(Re) reading Victoria Glendinning's biography of Vita Sackville-West, I thought it would bve interesting to read a biography of Harold Nicolson - except that there doesn't appear to be one, which is surprising. There are his diaries & letters, & Portrait of a marriage, but apparently nothing about him. Does anybody know if one has been published?

(Having checked the BL I find that there is one by James Lees-Milne, of which only Vol 1, up to 1926, seems to have been published, & one by Norman Rose. Amazon have this at £179 for a new hardback, or 1p for a used one!)

[Alain Maréchal]

Flosshilde,

Lees-Milne vol 2 has been published, and I've seen a copy on Amazon. Perhaps we need a new one, and I suggest Adam Nicolson is the appropriate author, unless of course Lees-Milne (I have not read it) says absolutely everything there is to say. OTOH perhaps there were too many people around who might have been distressed by some of the revelations, but 30 years later they may have moved on. It occurs to me that people are now quite keen to air their linen in public - it's not considered so shocking; Galahad Threepwood would never be able to cash in on his memoirs these days.

There have been biographies of people who served their country less well - and in some cases served other countries better - so Nicolson deserves one

[french frank]

Flosshilde,

Lees-Milne vol 2 has been published, and I've seen a copy on Amazon.

Details of Vol II here.

ON Amazon uk here.

[Flosshilde]

Flosshilde,

Lees-Milne vol 2 has been published, and I've seen a copy on Amazon. Perhaps we need a new one,

The Norman Rose book was published in 2005 (paperback in 2006.) From the press reviews quoted on Amazon it seems to have been well received

It occurs to me that people are now quite keen to air their linen in public - it's not considered so shocking; Galahad Threepwood would never be able to cash in on his memoirs these days.

Perhaps not by people paying up to be kept out, or for them not to be published, but he'd probably have newspapers queuing up to publish extracts for a fat fee!

[Alain Maréchal]

My apologies to both Flosshilde and french frank for not doing my research properly. I hadn't realised the Rose was so recent: I had noticed the Lees-Milne recently on Amazon (my interest had been the author, not the subject), and to refesh my memory I searched on Lees-Milne rather than Nicolson.

Quite inexcusable sloppiness.

[Flosshilde]

Well, not nearly as sloppy as my original post, where I said I couldn't find any biography, which I then edited to confess that I'd found two.

I'll probably order the Rose - the paperback one at 1p, not the hardback Reading the biography of V. he is so much in the background, yet sounds a rather more complex & major figure than is allowed out, & I'd like to find out more about him. Perhaps other biographies of V. pay him more attention.