Author Description

When Sir Henry ("Chips") Channon died in 1958, he left a detailed and almost continuous diary that he had kept for nearly forty years. In 1918 he had arrived in Europe, a young American from Chicago, just twenty-one years old. With his charm, ability, and ambition he made a rapid rise in English society. He married Lady Honor Guinness, became an MP, and, in the crucial years 1938-41, served at the Foreign Office as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Mr. R. A. (now Lord) Butler. He was an MP until his death, and was, from the late twenties, a leading personality in London society. His friendships were many and varied; King Edward VIII, the Duck and Duchess of Kent, Lady Cunard, Terence Rattigan, the Duff Coopers and the Wavell, among many others, attended his salon in Belgrave Square.In this edited version of his diaries, new and startling light is cast upon such episodes as the abdication of King Edward VIII, appeasement, the downfall of the Chamberlain Government and the dissensions between Sir Winston Churchill and Lord Wavell. The diaries have a real historical significance as an evocation of an age and a world that have vanished forever.