Letters from Oxford - by Richard Davenport-Hines (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Superbly readable and revealing letters, full of malice and gossip, from a master historian

When they met in 1947 Trevor-Roper, a young historian at Christ Church, Oxford, was 33. Berenson, the world-famous art critic, was 82, frail but still intensely curious about the world. Trevor Roper promised to write to him and his letters continued until Berenson's death in in 1959. Elegantly constructed, beautifully and precisely written, they are shot through with high-octane malice, sharp judgements and blistering comments, and many wonderfully funny episodes.

Trevor-Roper was an intellectual heavyweight, but subjects range widely: several brilliant set-pieces on Oxford college elections, books, journalism, publishing, politics (postwar Europe, ex-Nazis and collaborators, the Cold War, Suez, etc), history and history-writing, personal life (including marriage to Earl Haig's daughter Alexandra after her messy divorce), travel, gossip, and so on.

He has a memorable journey on a pilgrims' bus in Persia, goes behind the Iron Curtain to meet Communist dignitaries and speeds in his glamorous grey Bentley to visit duchesses in the Scottish borders. Figures in the letters include Evelyn Waugh, Isaiah Berlin, A.L. Rowse, Anthony Eden, Gerald Brenan, A.J.P.Taylor, Arnold Toynbee, Dimitri Shostakovitch, C.S. Lewis and Harold Macmillan.

Review Quotes

A delightful combination of high-mindedness and gossip--Katie Owen, Sunday Telegraph

About the Author

Hugh Trevor-Roper was born in 1914. He worked in the Secret Intelligence Service 1939-45. In 1945 he was sent to investigate the evidence for Hitler's death and in 1947 published his most famous book, THE LAST DAYS OF HITLER. He taught history at Christ Church from 1946 until 1957 when Harold Macmillan appointed him Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford. He became Lord Dacre of Glanton in 1979 and died in January 2003.