A Mingled Measure: Diaries 1953-1972 by James Lees-Milne lands on the shelves of my shop, where it will be found in my Biography section.
London: John Murray, 1994, Hardback in dust wrapper.
2nd impression. Contains: Portrait to the frontispiece;
From the cover: A Mingled Measure continues the sequence that established James Lees-Milne as the most entrancing diarist of the twentieth century. By 1953, when this volume begins, the author has ceased to work full-time for the National Trust. We now see him in kaleidoscopical ly varied company, including Colette and Oswald Mosley, Somerset Maugham and John Betjeman, L. P. Hartley and Bruce Chatwin. We watch him arrive in an absurdly overloaded Topolino at a formal luncheon with Prince Rainier of Monaco, persuade a disapproving William Esdaile to allow a priceless Shelley manuscript to be photographed and published, fend off an attack by a drunk hitch-hiker who then threatens to sue, and reluctantly accept the summons of an insistent Pope to authenticate, together with various professors with no language in common, St Peters chair hidden inside Berninis cathedra.
Very Good in Very Good Dust Wrapper. Dust wrapper very slightly rubbed at the edges. Leans slightly. Text complete, clean and tight.
Green boards with Gilt titling to the Spine. 325 pages. Index. 9½” x 6¼”.
BookLovers of Bath 