Recorded Books Inc. - The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before The Storm

Praise for The Perfect Summer:

Sharp and rangy Nicolson sets a lively, theatrical pace and makes good use of recurring characters. [There are] many glittering pieces in Nicolsons book.

The New York Times Book Review

Edward VII had died the previous year, and England was peeking out from under the Victorian hem. Nicolson captures it all, down to the frantic silliness and boredom of the upper classes; she has woven the details of those last days before the Great War into an unforgettable literary history.

Los Angeles Times

As page-turning as a novel.

Joanna Trollope, author of Marrying the Mistress and Next of Kin

Brilliant lucid, entertaining, and fascinating.

William Boyd, author of Any Human Heart and Restless

A book brimming with delectable information and little-known facts With a real eye for telling details, Nicolson manages to describe every stratum of English society. Where Nicolson is especially good, however, is with the royals and the aristocracy, whose country estates, salons, entertainments, and affairsdiscreet and indiscreetshe describes with accuracy and humor.

The Providence Journal

The blistering-hot summer of 1911 saw the beginnings of the slide from arrogant innocence, for Britons of all classes, that would carry them all three years later into the exercise in mutual mass murder we call World War I. Ms. Nicolson deftly picks a cast of characters that represents each stratum of society and how those issues broiled along with the weather.

The Washington Times

Sparkling social history breezy yet informative Juliet Nicolson has created the perfect beach reading for Anglophiles.

The Christian Science Monitor

Evocative, gossipy profoundly moving Pour yourself some champagne and revel in the sybaritic trivia that Ms. Nicolson lays out so invitingly before us.

New York Sun

Meticulous Nicolson beautifully captures [the] fever pitch, when it was as if time was running out. The Perfect Summer transcends national boundaries: readers dont have to be British to appreciate her talent. Through rich sensory detail and captivating language, Nicolsons prose has the power to transport anyone into 1911 England.

The Harvard Book Review

Stunning utterly compelling.

Joanna Lumley

A hugely interesting portrait of a society teetering on a precipice both nationally and internationally.

The Guardian (UK)

Deliciously evocative Juliet Nicolson has fashioned for us a treasure-trove, doubly perfect for winter.

Simon Winchester, author of The Professor and the Madman and Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded

Rich and marvelously researched.

The Sunday Telegraph (UK)

An intimate portrait of Englands elite that spares no details of their dress, manners, and social habits Bathed in the soft glow of nostalgia, it is a love letter to a lost past that luxuriates in the pleasures of what is presented as a simpler, more stable time.

The Seattle Times

A charming bit of social history about how the rich enjoyed themselves that final hot summer before World War I.

Chicago Tribune

A stunning piece of social history What makes Juliet Nicolsons work outstanding are the portraits it renders of how both the high and the low lived at this turning point in English history.

The Buffalo News

Juliet Nicolsons brief, pre-World War I narrative reads much like a memoir, and through a prism of nostalgia tempered with suggestions of political turbulence and sexual dalliance, her book succeeds, ultimately emerging as a snapshot of a culture in transition.

California Literary Review

A peach of a book full of good things, sparkling, elegant, and often funny.

Literary Review (UK)

Juliet Nicolson transports us back to the enchanted and enchanting summer of 1911. She guides us through its four months in company with some of the most delightful people imaginable. It is a wonderful and poignant tour that proved to be a farewell appearance to their world.

David Fromkin, author of Europes Last Summer:
Who Started the Great War in 1914?

Detail makes Juliet Nicolsons portrait of a single Edwardian year such a fascinating read. I felt transported into what Nicolson felicitously describes as one of the high sunlit meadows of English history.

The Mail on Sunday (UK)

A fast-paced commemorative of the social antics of the English upper class as well as the financial woes of dock workers and household servants A highly entertaining and knowledgeable introduction to a world that was changed forever by World War I.

Hannah Pakula, author of An Uncommon WomanThe Empress
Frederick: Daughter of QueenVictoria, Wife of the
Crown Prince of Prussia, Mother of Kaiser Wilhelm

The Perfect Summer

England 1911,
Just Before the Storm

JULIET NICOLSON

Copyright 2006 by Juliet Nicolson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, or the facilitation thereof, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review. Any members of educational institutions wishing to photocopy part or all of the work for classroom use, or publishers who would like to obtain permission to include the work in an anthology, should send their inquiries to Grove/Atlantic, Inc., 841 Broadway, New York, NY 10003.

First published in Great Britain in 2006 by John Murray (Publishers), a division of Hodder Headline

Quotation from A Shropshire Lad by A. E. Housman is reproduced by kind permission of the Society of Authors (as the Literary Representative of the Estate of A. E. Housman). Quotation from The Way Through the Woods by Rudyard Kipling is reproduced by kind permission of A. P. Watt Ltd. (on behalf of The National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty).

Quotations from Royal Archives material: p. 19 RA/GV/CC/25/100 7 May I am dressed in grey; p. 19 RA/GV/CC/25/100 7 May tiresome trousseau; p. 20 RA/GV/CC/25/100 7 May the fashions of the season so hideous; p. 34 RA/GV/QMD/1911 15 May Most amusing; p. 38 RA/GV/QMD/1911 19 May It began at 10 and was over at 1; p. 38 RA/GV/QMD/1911 20 May a great success; p. 188 RA/GV/QMD/1911 9 August heat perfectly awful; p. 190 RA/GV/QMD/1911 10 August At 11:00 a.m. we heard.

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Nicolson, Juliet.

The perfect summer : England 1911, just before the storm / Juliet Nicolson.

p. cm.

Originally published: London : John Murray, 2006.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

eBook ISBN-13: 978-1-5558-4870-5

1. Great BritainSocial life and customs20th century. 2. Great Britain HistoryGeorge V, 19101936. 3. Social classesGreat BritainHistory20th century. 4. Great BritainSocial conditions20th century. 5. Social structure Great Britain20th Century. I. Title.

DA566.4.N54 2007

942.083dc22

2006048854

Grove Press
an imprint of Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
841 Broadway
New York, NY 10003

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For Clemmie and Flora

The author and publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce illustrations: Plates 1, 5, 8, 16 and 23, Getty Images; 2, 3, 4,10, 22 and 28, The Illustrated London News Picture Library; 6, Topfoto/Public Record Office/HIP; 17, Topfoto; 7, The Savoy; 9, 33 and 34, Artemis Cooper; 11 and 13, V&AImages/Victoria and Albert Museum; 12 and 19, Bettmann/CORBIS; 14 and 15, Calkin Family; 18, E.O. Hopp/CORBIS; 20 and 21, Adam Nicolson; 24, 26 and 32, Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS; 25, TUC Library Collections; 27, The Royal Institution of Cornwall; 29, The National Archives (ref.: COPY 1/559); 35: The National Archives (ref.: COPY 1/560); 30, NRM/Science & Society Picture Library; 31, The de Lszl Foundation.