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'The greatest British diarist of the 20th century . . . finally, we are getting the full text, in all its bitchy, scintillating detail' Ben Macintyre 'A masterpiece - a time machine that transports the reader back to British politics and high society at the end of the 1930s.' Robert Harris 'An unrivalled guide to the social and political life of Britain in the first half of the 20th century.' Books of the Year, The Times 'Fascinating.' New Statesman 'Never a dull day, never a dull sentence.' Daily Mail _______________________________________________ The political career of Conservative MP Henry 'Chips' Channon (1897-1958) was unremarkable. His diaries are quite the opposite. Witty, gossipy and bitchy by turns, they are the unfettered observations of a man who went everywhere and knew everyone. This second of three volumes opens in October 1938 with Channon optimistically believing that his hero Neville Chamberlain can stave off a general European conflagration. It closes with the expression of his hope that Mussolini's fall from power in July 1943 means 'The war must be more than half over'. In the intervening pages, he charts diplomatic to-ings and fro-ings and political manouevring, hatches a plan to keep Yugoslavia in the Allied camp, dines with English high society and foreign royalty, and passes not-always-charitable judgements on contemporaries who range from Winston Churchill and General de Gaulle to Noel Coward and Oscar Wilde's erstwhile lover Lord Alfred Douglas.

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9781529160215

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The greatest British diarist of the 20th century. A feast of weapons-grade above-stairs gossip. Now, finally, we are getting the full text, in all its bitchy, scintillating detail, thanks to the journalist and historian Simon Heffer, whose editing of this vast trove of material represents an astonishing achievement. Channon is a delightful guide, by turns frivolous and profound.--Ben Macintyre, The Times Wickedly entertaining . . . scrupulously edited and annotated by Simon Heffer. Genuinely shocking, and still revelatory.--Andrew Marr, New Statesman The between-the-wars diaries of the romping, social-climbing MP Henry Channon make for an irresistible, saucy read. There are plenty of anecdotes, bons mots and delicious tales of scandal . . . one of the most impressive editions of our time.--The Telegraph Channon's chief virtue as a writer is his abiding awareness that dullness is the worst sin of all, and for this reason they're among the most glittering and enjoyable [diaries] ever written--The Observer Sensation, spite, social climbing, high society, self-indulgence, sex;Chips Channon had the raw materials to make his uncensored diaries newsworthy a century after he began them. They shock, repel and compel because they don't conceal . . . He is calculating, selfish, amoral, vain, ambitious and deluded, and more of us should follow his example. Not in the living, but in the recording of it.--Jenni Russell, The Times Although Channon was frequently wrong and occasionally repellent, there is no denying his talent as a diarist or the historical value of his diaries. Lacking pomposity or dissemblance, his entries are often witty, sometimes perceptive, and always fascinating--Air Mail The diaries are fascinating and sometimes a key historical record. And the man could write.--Daily Mirror

Author Information

Sir Henry (Chips) Channon was born in Chicago in 1897. The son of a wealthy businessman, he accompanied the American Red Cross to Paris in 1917, was an undergraduate at Christ Church, Oxford, and then settled in London where he enjoyed the high life. He married into the Guinness family, and became a Conservative MP for Southend from 1935 until his death. He knew or was friends with all the leading politicians and aristocrats of the period, wined and dined Edward VIII and Wallis Simpson in the months before the Abdication crisis, and observed at first hand the last days of appeasement.

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