Diaries

the long version

"Frances Partridge is one of the great British diarists of the century. She was born in 1900, the daughter of a progressive mother and architect father whose friends included Henry James and Arthur Conan Doyle. After studying Moral Sciences and English at Cambridge University, she worked in Heywood Hill's Curzon Street bookshop in London and became part of the Bloomsbury Group, encountering Virginia Woolf, the Bells, Roger Fry and Maynard Keynes, Dora Carrington, Lytton Strachey and Ralph Partridge. She and Ralph fell in love and married in 1933. During the war they were both committed pacifists and opened their house, Ham Spray, to numerous waifs and strays of war. After it was over they enjoyed the happiest time of their life together, entertaining friends such as E. M. Forster, Robert Kee and Duncan Grant." "This life of great warmth and friendship was brought to an abrupt end when Ralph died of a heart attack in 1960. Three years later another tragedy struck when their only son, Burgo, died at the age of 28 from a brain haemorrhage. 'I have utterly lost heart: I want no more of this cruel life,' Frances wrote and yet, despite such enormous suffering, she maintained an astonishing appetite for life, whether for her friends, travelling, botany, or music. Her diaries chronicle a remarkable life. Beautifully written, full of an infectious enthusiasm and unending curiosity, they are utterly riveting and rank amongst the greatest diaries of the century."--BOOK JACKET.