Product Description

James Lees-Milne (1908–97) – known to friends as Jim – is remembered for his work for the National Trust, rescuing some of England’s greatest architectural treasures, and for the vivid and entertaining diaries which have earned him a reputation as ‘the twentieth-century Pepys’. In this long-awaited biography, Michael Bloch portrays a life rich in contradictions, in which an unassuming youth overtook more dazzling contemporaries to emerge as a leading figure in the fields of conservation and letters. It describes Jim’s bisexual love life, his tempestuous marriage to the exotic Alvilde, and his friendship with other fascinating literary figures including John Betjeman, Robert Byron, Rosamond Lehmann, and the Mitford sisters (whose brother Tom had been Jim’s great love at Eton). It depicts a man who was romantically attached to the England of his childhood and felt out of tune with his own times, but who left an enduring legacy through the preservation of country houses and his eloquent chronicling of a dying world. (20090926)

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1764 in Books
• Published on: 2009-09-03
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 416 pages

Review

‘Admirably crisp, brisk and comprehensive’

(The Sunday Times (Culture), Peter Kemp 20090912)

‘Full of sex, scandal and name-dropping, this biography does justice to James Lees-Milne’

(The Observer, Oliver Marre 20090912)

‘Very funny indeed’

(The Independent on Sunday, DJ Taylor 20090912)

‘If he does not sweep us up the whole length of the drive with his passionate intensity, he succeeds in dropping us off safely at the gates of a minor, but convincing, national treasure’

(The Telegraph Review, Nicholas Shakespeare 20090912)

‘Funny, observant and revealing’

(The Scotsman, David Sexton 20090912)

‘Fascinating new biography’

(Daily Mail )

‘...a remarkable study, a striking three-dimensional portrait of a subversive, sensitive and endearing man...’

(Selina Hastings, Sunday Telegraph )

’Bloch has produced the perfect compliment to Lees-Milne’s books and fully justified his mentor’s faith’

(Evening Standard, David Sexton )

‘Michael Bloch has resisted writing a pompous, laborious tombstone of a book about this long, busy, well-documented life.  His biography is disciplined, compact, elegant and tender...’

(Richard Davenport-Hines, Times Literary Supplement )

‘Total candour and integrity.  This is an absolutely model biography’

(A. N. Wilson, Country Life )

‘This book has been eagerly awaited by addicts of James Lees-Milne’s diaries, and they will not be disappointed. It is as perfect a biography as it is possible to imagine... It is not merely a rehash of the diaries, but brings to life the mercurial and delicate intelligence that brought them into being’

(A. N. Wilson, Country Life )

‘...a pleasing, rounded picture of the upper-class muddler who was the greatest English diarist of the twentieth century...  Michael Bloch, who knew his subject well for many years, is a tactful, sensitive but not an indulgent biographer. His book conveys the contradictions of character and circumstances out of which this complicated, elusive but attractive personality evolved towards late-flowering celebrity’

(Rosemary Hill, London Review of Books )

“Although Lees-Milne wrote so much about himself, Michael Bloch’s admirable biography has nothing of déjà vu about it.  He has done his old friend proud”

(The Literary Review, Jeremy Lewis )

‘This book is so well-written you can actually imagine what it’s like to be duiaryist James Lees-Milne ... a brilliant insight into another world’

(News of the World )

'This final assortment of journals reaffirms Lees-Milne’s reputation as one of the 20th century’s greatest diarists'  

(Daily Express )

‘I much enjoy his waspish asides and his frank self- knowledge’

(Telegraph )

'This book is so well-written you can actually imagine what it’s like to be diarist James Lees-Milne ...a brilliant insight into another world.’

(News of the World )

‘An admirable biography.  Bloch has written Lees-Milne’s life in a way that honours its subject:  funny, observant and revealing ... the perfect complement to the diaries’

(David Sexton, Evening Standard )

‘Bloch has dug deep and told all about his indiscreet, emotional, wrongheaded, infuriating, yet curiously disarming subject...  The result is an absorbing and faintly disquieting example of the contemporary biographer’s art’

(Anne Chisholm, The Spectator )

‘The writer’s affection and understanding has resulted in a remarkable study, a striking three-dimensional portrait of a subversive, sensitive and endearing man. Naturally, Bloch has made good use of the diaries, but he has gone far beyond them, investigating the long periods when nothing was written as well as uncovering an intriguing and recurrent thread of fantasy... James Lees-Milne: The Life is an exceptional biography: lively, perceptive and well-written... The diaries will never be superseded, but this book is their essential companion’ (Telegraph Seven )

’His vivid and sparkling biography...an accomplished and confident account...admirable,’ (The Herald )

‘’A joy to read’

(Evening Chronicle, Anthony Looch )

‘Superbly written and enormously entertaining...’

(Oxford Times )

‘This is a sensitive and nuanced account of his life’ (The Week )

‘This book presents a frank and sympathetic portrait’

(Leicester Mercury )

‘A frank and sympathetic portrait’

(Western Mail / East Anglian Daily Times )

‘A frank and sympathetic portrait...9/10’

(Edinburgh Evening News )

'A rich social history and a warm picture of a man particular to his time'

(Country & Town House )

“Michael Bloch has served his old friend well...a book every bit as well written and entertaining as the diaries”

(Irish Times )

“Frank and sympathetic portrait of a complex, cultured and loveable man, whose fame grew as he aged”

(Eastern Daily Press )

'Admirably judged; warm, but not hagiographical; sufficiently candid, and acutely revealing...the subject and the author are here perfectly matched'

(The Observer )

About the Author
Michael Bloch read law at St John's College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar by the Inner Temple. Appointed James Lees-Milne's literary executor in 1997, he edited the final five volumes of the complete diary and most recently has edited and introduced the three abridged volumes. (20090926)

---

Customer Reviews

This biography is superb
As per Ms Owen's statement, this biography has been a long time coming (and I nearly despaired) but it is entertaining. Having started to read the Diaries in 1985, I have always wondered about some aspects of JLM's life - and now have answers. One wonders what the Dowager Duchess of Devonshire thinks of this biography, for a number of reasons.

There is a hint, may be not a hint, yet a suggestion that there is yet another book which Michael Bloch could produce featuring JLM. Reflecting back on nearly a quarter of a century of reading Lees-Milne, I cannot help thinking that this biography should only be read after the Diaries or, just possibly, concurrently.

Brilliant
Ms Owen's review is unfair ( - I haven't spotted her books to make comment): this is a symmpathetic and thoroughly researched, balanced and well-written biography - all that one could wish.

National Treasure
I enjoyed this affectionate and well-written biography. Michael Bloch's life of James Lees-Milne is a welcome complement to - though not a substitute for - his old friend's splendid diaries.

Bloch covers much ground familiar to us from the Diaries, but he also fills in gaps and separates fact from fiction in Lees-Milne's accounts, for the diarist had a tremendous tendency to suborn other people's anecdotes and claim them for his own experience. In addition to painting the life of a fascinating individual, Bloch takes us on a well-researched tour of several lost worlds: those of the fading and eccentric upper classes of the war and immediate post war period; of Society converts to Roman Catholicism; of publishing and literary circles when they were still run by gentlemen; and of the openly secret and still illegal world of upper class and literary homosexuals.

Bloch expertly guides us though Lees-Milnes' "lower upper class" upbringing - he commonly implied it was grander - his non-distinguished education at Eton and Magdalen, Oxford, with a stint at "Miss Blakeney's School of Stenography for Young Ladies" in between, his difficult relationship with his philistine father who considered him to be a pansy ("I told him I am"), and his discovery, in a sense, of a surrogate father in his older lover, Harold Nicolson. It was partly through Nicolson that Lees-Milne landed his position in the fledgling and still clubby National Trust. His role as Country Houses Secretary was pivotal to his personal development and through it he made a major contribution to the conservation of England's heritage at a time when confiscatory taxation and other social policies threatened it with eradication. In 1951, he married the just divorced and similarly bisexual Alvide Chaplin, and his role at the National Trust began to step down and his literary career step up. Throughout his often difficult but ultimately happy marriage, he continued to have numerous homosexual affairs (indeed, he could not always remember whether he had slept with someone or not), as did Alvide, most famously with Vita Sackville West, Nicolson's wife. This did not stop Alvide from being embarrassingly possessive to the extent that her behaviour cost Lees-Milne his "gong," a loss that she regretted more than he. He started to publish his diaries in 1975 and thus secured his place in literary and social history.

Bloch has a good eye for anecdotes and he quotes judiciously from the diaries, capturing the essence of what Lees-Milnes' friend Rosamund Lehman described as his "perfect equipment for a diarist - a light, intimate touch, marvelous eye for detail and ear for gossip; above all sympathy and wit, the latter sly and deliciously turned against yourself as well as others."

Unlike Lees-Milne in his biography of Nicolson, Michael Bloch freely discloses his close personal friendship with his subject. Bloch and Lees-Milne met in 1979 and were mutually smitten (Bloch mentions that their friendship remained platonic) to the extent that Bloch became one of the targets of Alvide's rage. Bloch helped edit the Diaries and he was appointed Lees-Milnes' literary executor. In writing this book, he has made good use of his inheritance.