Dimensions
155 x 236 x 48mm
The First Omnibus Edition with Selections from all the Published Diaries
Now recognised as one of the great British diarists of the twentieth century, Partridge was born in Bedford Square, Bloomsbury in 1900, the daughter of a progressive mother and architect father who friends included Henry James and Arthur Conan Doyle. After studying Moral Sciences and English at Cambridge, she worked in Heywood Hill's Curzon Street bookshop and became part of the Bloomsbury Group, encountering Virginia Woolf, the Bells, Roger Fry and Maynard Keynes, Dora Carrington, Lytton Strachey and Ralph Partridge.
She met and fell in love with Ralph Partridge and they married in 1933. During the war they were both committed pacifists and opened their home, Ham Spray, to numerous waifs and strays of war. After it was over they enjoyed the happiest time of their life together, entertaining friends such as E M Forster, Robert Kee and Duncan Grant.
This life of great warmth and friendship was brought to an abrupt end when Ralph died in 1960. Three years later their only son, Burgo, also died, at the age of 28, from a brain haemorrhage. Frances wrote she had utterly lost heart with this cruel life, yet despite enormous suffering she maintained an astonishing appetite for life, whether for her friends, travelling, botany or music.
Her diaries chronicle a remarkable life. Beautifully written, full of an infectious enthusiasm and unending curiosity, they are utterly riveting.
