Harold Nicolson

by Norman Rose

"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 gro