The one hundred letters brought together for this book illustrate
the range of Hugh Trevor-Roper's life and preoccupations: as an
historian, a controversialist, a public intellectual, an adept in
academic intrigues, a lover of literature, a traveller, a
countryman. They depict a life of rich diversity; a mind of
intellectual sparkle and eager curiosity; a character that relished
the comedie humaine, and the absurdities, crotchets, and vanities
of his contemporaries. The playful irony of Trevor-Roper's
correspondence places him in a literary tradition stretching back
to such great letter-writers as Madame de Sevigne and Horace
Walpole. Though he generally shunned emotional self-exposure in
correspondence as in company, his letters to the woman who became
his wife reveal the surprising intensity and the raw depths of his
feelings. Trevor-Roper was one of the most gifted scholars of his
generation, and one of the most famous dons of his day. While still
a young man, he made his name with his bestseller The Last Days of
Hitler, and became notorious for his acerbic assaults on other
historians. In his prime, Trevor-Roper appeared to have everything:
a grey Bentley, a prestigious chair in Oxford, a beautiful country
house, a wife with a title, and, eventually, a title of his own.
But he failed to write the 'big book' expected of him, and tainted
his reputation when in old age he erroneously authenticated the
forged Hitler diaries. For an academic, Trevor-Roper's interests
were extraordinarily wide, bringing him into contact with such
diverse individuals as George Orwell and Margaret Thatcher, Albert
Speer and Kim Philby, Katharine Hepburn and Rupert Murdoch. The
tragicomedy of his tenure as Master of Peterhouse, Cambridge,
provided an appropriate finale to a career packed with incident.
Trevor-Roper's letters to Bernard Berenson, published as Letters
from Oxford in 2006, gave pleasure to a wide variety of readers.
This more general selection of his correspondence has been long
anticipated, and will delight anyone who values wit, erudition, and
clear prose.
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