Harold Nicolson: A Biography (1)

Volume 1 covers 1886-1920. Harold Nicolson, great diplomat, diarist and raconteur, moved in numerous worlds and knew an extraordinary number of distinguished people. This first volume of James Lees-Milne's biography describes his nomadic childhood in Budapest, Tehran, Constantinople and Bulgaria; his English schooling in Folkestone and Wellington; his undergraduate years at Balliol, and his early independent travels in Europe. The author then traces Nicolson's diplomatic service in Spain, his stormy courtship of and marriage to Vita Sackville-West, and his involvement with the Foreign Office during the First World War. Nicolson's papers from this period bequeath to us not only an astute political judgement of the aftermath of the war, but also fascinating personal insights into both Balfour and Lloyd George. Mr. Lees-Milne has endeavoured to let Nicolson tell his own story, often in his own inimitable words, with the minimum of intervention. After the war Nicolson was in the Diplomatic Service in Paris, and he also embarked on a literary career. His friendship with Cocteau began at this period and he met leading literary figures such as Gide and Proust. Then his introduction to the Bloomsbury Group, who had a decisive influence on him, came about at the same time as he was writing books on Tennyson, Byron and Swinburne. This volume covers his life until 1929 when he resigned from the Diplomatic Service to join the staff of the Evening Standard.