James Lees-Milne by Michael Bloch - ISBN: 9780719565502
Paperback
Saving England’s treasures, scandalous diaries, and a life of contradictions.

James Lees-Milne

$44.91

  • Paperback

    416 pages

  • Release Date

    1 September 2010

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Summary

James Lees-Milne (1908-1997), 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 conservati…

Book Details

ISBN-13:9780719565502
ISBN-10:0719565502
Author:Michael Bloch
Publisher:John Murray Press
Imprint:John Murray Publishers Ltd
Format:Paperback
Number of Pages:416
Release Date:1 September 2010
Weight:304g
Dimensions:197mm x 129mm x 27mm
What They're Saying

Critics Review

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

Total candour and integrity. This is an absolutely model biography - Country Life (A.N Wilson)

’ Michael Bloch s admirable biography has nothing of deja vu about it. He has done his old friend proud ‘ - The Literary Review (Jeremy Lewis)

‘His biography is disciplined, compact, elegant and tender, and equally illuminating, suggestive and commodius abouit all the compartmentalized little platoons that Lees-Milne served, - Richard Davenport-Hines, Time Literary Supplement

His vivid and sparkling biography…an accomplished and confident account…admirable, - Mathew Dennison, The Herald

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, Block 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James Lees-Milne:The Life is an exceptional biography: lively perceptive and well-written…The diaries will never be superseded, but this book is their essential companion, - Mark Sanderson, Telegraph, Seven

Admirably crisp and comprehensive life of the Pepys of the twentieth century - Sunday TIme CUlture, Our Choice

‘A frank and sympathetic portrait…9⁄10, - Anthony Looch, Edinburgh Evening News

About The Author

Michael Bloch

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.

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