Harold Nicolson

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Harold Nicolson, born in the late Victorian age, scion of a privileged family, was a man of extraordinary gifts. As a diplomat a glittering career beckoned.But his talents extended well beyond the conference chamber, for he was also a renowned politician, historian, biographer, diarist, novelist, lecturer, journalist, broadcaster and gardener. His position in society and politics, and his flair for recording what he witnessed, allowed Nicolson an insight into the most dramatic events of British, indeed world, history, from the peace settlements of 1919 to the Abdication Crisis, from the events leading to the Second World War to Suez. Nicolson’s personal life was no less dramatic. Married to Vita Sackville-West, one of the most famous writers of her day, their marriage survived, even prospered, despite their both being practising homosexuals. Unashamedly elitist, bound together by their literary, social, and intellectual pursuits, moving in the refined circles of the Bloomsbury group and other literary and social coteries, they viewed life from the rarified peaks of aristocratic haughtiness. At Sissinghurst Castle, their home for more than thirty years, their shared passion for gardening led to the creation of one of the most magnificent gardens of England. Few men could boast such gifts as Nicolson possessed. Yet he ended his life plagued by self-doubt. ‘I am attempting nothing; therefore I cannot fail,’ he once acknowledged. What went wrong? It was a question that haunted Nicolson throughout his adult life. Here, Norman Rose sensitively unravels this intriguing history. Relying on a wealth of archival material, he brilliantly disentangles fact from fiction, setting Nicolson’s story of perceived failure against the wider perspective of his times.

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Norman Rose is a graduate of the LSE and now holds the Chair of International Relations at the Hebrew University, Jerusalem. A distinguished historian and Fellow of the Royal Historical Society, he is also the author of much acclaimed biographies of Winston Churchill and Chaim Weitzman, as well as a study of the Cliveden Set.