This second volume of James Lees-Milne's masterly biography opens at a turning point in Harold Nicolson's life: he was miserable at the
Evening Standard
and disillusioned with Mosley's New Party but his move to Sissinghurst, where he and his wife would design one of the most beautiful gardens in England, offered a fresh start. Thereafter he became increasingly involved in politics (spending ten years as National Labour Party MP, close to the heart of government during the worst months of the war.) After the war he turned royal biographer, writing the life of George V, two books on manners and a study of his hero, Sainte-Beuve. Thus James Lee-Milne, drawing on mostly unpublished letters and diaries, completes this vivid study of a man of uncommon talents and energies.