The first unexpurgated edition of one of the most famous diaries of the twentieth century
Sir Henry (Chips) Channon was born in Chicago in 1897 (although he claimed 1899 as the year of his birth, until the true facts were exposed - to his embarrassment - in the Sunday Express). 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 mingled with society and 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. He died in 1958. Elliot Templeton in Somerset Maugham's novel The Razor's Edge (1944) and the disappointed schoolmaster Croker-Harris in Rattigan's play The Browning Version (1948) were partly inspired by Channon.
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.
*The Times*
Wickedly entertaining . . . scrupulously edited and annotated by
Simon Heffer. Genuinely shocking, and still revelatory.
*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.
*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*
Heffer has done his job with scholarly aplomb. Throughout his life
[Chips] had the knack - invaluable for a diarist with dreams of
publication - of bumping into all the right people. Fascinating
stuff . . . a work of high camp.
*The Spectator*
Gripping reading . . . While countless of Chip's decent
contemporaries and especially politicians are today forgotten, the
diaries make him an indispensable source for anyone writing of this
period.
*The Sunday Times*
A fabulous potpourri of first-hand history, snobbish gossip, acute
insight and stomach-churning enthusiasm for Nazism (by no means
unique among the British upper-classes at the time). Channon was
vain, funny, bitchy, clever, pithy and fabulously well-connected:
all the qualities of a superb diarist.
*Daily Mail*
Chips perfectly embodied the qualities vital to the task: a
capacious ear for gossip, a neat turn of phrase, a waspish desire
to tell all, and easy access to the highest social circles across
Europe . . . Blending Woosterish antics with a Lady Bracknellesque
capacity for acid comment. Replete with fascinating insights.
*Financial Times*
Chips Channon, the bisexual snob and socialite who hobnobbed (and
more) with royalty, politicians and famous writers . . . a new,
expanded version of his disclosures has left some readers gasping
at his audacity, indiscretion and promiscuity.
*The Times Weekend Essay*
A masterpiece of storytelling and character assassination . . .
Heffer's footnoted forays into Burke's and the Almanach de Gotha
are worth reading alone for the picture they paint of a world so
shifting and slippery that forging an identity is as much an act of
will as an accident of history.
*Guardian*
Channon is a delightful guide, by turns frivolous and profound.
*The Times Book of the Week*
A compelling account of the extraordinary times of interwar
Britain. Reading Chips is like eating a rich cream. Impossible to
put down. A superb edition of an indispensable chronicle.
*The Oldie Magazine*
Heffer has done a stupendous job. Eminently worth publishing.
*Literary Review*
I cannot put down Simon Heffer's wonderful edition of Chips
Channon's diaries . . . Channon was a natural diarist - observant,
gossipy, snobbish, disarming, preposterous, agonised and, more
rarely, horrible.
*The Spectator*
Channon, then, was a cipher for his times. An unremarkable
politician, a mediocre intellect, and the morals of an alley cat on
Viagra, did not prevent him from being the most acute commentator
on his era.
*The Herald*
This enthralling book confirms Channon as the "greatest British
diarist of the 20th century" . . . It's packed with "weapons-grade
above-stairs gossip" and superb one-line put-downs: Stravinsky
looks "like a German dentist" . . . it provides an unrivalled guide
to society and politics in the interwar years.
*The Week*
In his heyday, Tory politician Sir Henry 'Chips' Channon knew
everyone and was present at almost every big event of the first
half of the Twentieth Century . . . The diary is a whopper but
there are gems on every page. Highly recommended and I'm looking
forward to volumes two and three.
*Express*
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