Sir Harold George Nicolson (21 November 1886 – 1 May 1968) was a British politician, diplomat, historian, biographer, diarist, novelist, lecturer, journalist, broadcaster, and gardener. His wife was the writer
Vita Sackville-West.
Early life
Nicolson was born in
Tehran
Tehran (; fa, تهران ) is the largest city in Tehran Province and the capital of Iran. With a population of around 9 million in the city and around 16 million in the larger metropolitan area of Greater Tehran, Tehran is the most popul ...
,
Persia
Iran, officially the Islamic Republic of Iran, and also called Persia, is a country located in Western Asia. It is bordered by Iraq and Turkey to the west, by Azerbaijan and Armenia to the northwest, by the Caspian Sea and Turkmeni ...
, the youngest son of diplomat
Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock
Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock, (19 September 1849 – 5 November 1928), known as Sir Arthur Nicolson, 11th Baronet, from 1899 to 1916, was a British diplomat and politician during the last quarter of the 19th century to the middle of Worl ...
. He spent his boyhood in various places throughout
Europe
Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...
and the
Near East and followed his father's frequent postings, including in
St. Petersburg,
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
,
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
,
Sofia
Sofia ( ; bg, София, Sofiya, ) is the capital and largest city of Bulgaria. It is situated in the Sofia Valley at the foot of the Vitosha mountain in the western parts of the country. The city is built west of the Iskar river, and h ...
, and
Tangier
Tangier ( ; ; ar, طنجة, Ṭanja) is a city in northwestern Morocco. It is on the Moroccan coast at the western entrance to the Strait of Gibraltar, where the Mediterranean Sea meets the Atlantic Ocean off Cape Spartel. The town is the capi ...
.
He was educated at The Grange School in
Folkestone, Kent, followed by
Wellington College Wellington College may refer to:
* Wellington College, Berkshire, an independent school in Crowthorne, Berkshire, England
** Wellington College International Shanghai
** Wellington College International Tianjin
*Wellington College, Wellington, New ...
. He attended
Balliol College, Oxford, graduating in 1909 with a
third class degree. Nicolson entered the
Foreign Office that same year, after passing second in the competitive exams for the
Diplomatic Service and
Civil Service
The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil servants hired on professional merit rather than appointed or elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leaders ...
.
Diplomatic career
In 1909, Nicolson joined
HM Diplomatic Service. He served as
attaché at
Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the second-largest city in the European Union (EU), and ...
from February to September 1911 and as Third Secretary at
Constantinople
la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه
, alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya (Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis (" ...
from January 1912 to October 1914. In 1913, Nicolson married the novelist
Vita Sackville-West. Nicolson and his wife practised what would now be called an
open marriage, with both having affairs with others of the same sex.
A diplomatic career was honorable and prestigious in Edwardian Britain, but Sackville-West's parents were aristocrats who wanted their daughter to marry a fellow aristocrat from an old noble family and so gave only reluctant approval to the marriage.
[Johnston, Georgia "Counterfeit Perversion: Vita Sackville-West's "Portrait of a Marriage"" pp. 124–137 from ''Journal of Modern Literature'' Volume 28, Issue # 1, Autumn 2004 p. 125.]
During the
First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...
, he served at the
Foreign Office in London during which he was promoted to Second Secretary. As the Foreign Office's most junior employee at this rank, it fell to him on 4 August 1914 to hand Britain's revised declaration of war to Prince
Max von Lichnowsky, the German ambassador in London. In December 1917, Nicolson had to explain to Sackville-West that he had contracted a
venereal disease
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs), also referred to as sexually transmitted diseases (STDs) and the older term venereal diseases, are infections that are spread by sexual activity, especially vaginal intercourse, anal sex, and ora ...
as a result of an anonymous homosexual encounter and that he had probably passed it to her. As it turned out, he had not passed it.
He served in a junior capacity in the
Paris Peace Conference in 1919 for which he was appointed
Companion of the Order of St Michael and St George (CMG) in the 1920 New Year Honours.
Promoted to First Secretary in 1920, he was appointed private secretary to Sir
Eric Drummond
James Eric Drummond, 7th Earl of Perth, (17 August 1876 – 15 December 1951), was a British politician and diplomat who was the first Secretary-General of the League of Nations (1920–1933).
Quiet and unassuming, he succeeded in building an e ...
, the first Secretary-General of the
League of Nations
The League of Nations (french: link=no, Société des Nations ) was the first worldwide intergovernmental organisation whose principal mission was to maintain world peace. It was founded on 10 January 1920 by the Paris Peace Conference th ...
, but was recalled to the Foreign Office in June 1920. The same year, Sackville-West became involved in an intense relationship with
Violet Trefusis that nearly wrecked her marriage. As Nicolson wrote in his diary, "Damn! Damn! Damn! Violet. How I ''loathe'' her".
On one occasion, Nicolson had to follow Vita to France, where she had "eloped" with Trefusis, to try to win her back.
Nicolson himself was no stranger to homosexual affairs. Among others, he was involved in a long-term relationship with
Raymond Mortimer, whom both he and Vita affectionately referred to as "Tray". Nicolson and Vita discussed their shared homosexual tendencies frankly with each other, and they remained happy together. They were famously devoted to each other and wrote almost every day when they were separated because of Nicolson's long diplomatic postings abroad or Vita's insatiable
wanderlust. Eventually, he gave up diplomacy, partly so that they could live together in England.
In 1925, he was promoted to
counsellor and posted to Tehran as
chargé d'affaires. The same year, General
Reza Khan deposed the last Qajar Shah,
Ahmad Shah Qajar, to take the
Peacock Throne for himself. Though it was not entirely appropriate for a foreign diplomat's wife, Sackville-West became deeply involved in the coronation of Reza Khan as the new Shah. Nicolson personally disliked Reza Khan and called him "a bullet-headed man with the voice of an asthmatic child".
Reza Khan disliked British influence in Iran, and after being crowned Shah, he submitted a "categorical note" that demanded the "removal of Indian ''Savars''
ounted guardsfrom Persia".
[Milani, Abbas ''The Shah'', London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010 p. 54.] The ''Savars'' had been used to guard the British Legation in Tehran and various consulates across Persia, and Reza Khan felt having the troops of a foreign power riding through the streets of his capital was an infringement of his sovereignty. As chargé d'affairs, Nicolson was in charge of the British Legation in the summer of 1926 and upon receiving the Iranian note, he rushed down to the Iranian Foreign Ministry to object.
Nicolson writing in the third person stated he had a "
Kipling inside him and something of an 'empire builder'" told the Persian officials that the note was "so categorical to be almost offensive" and wanted it withdrawn. The Persians stated that the note had been written by Reza Khan and could not be withdrawn, but ultimately an annex was added to the note, which softened its threatening tone. However, much to the satisfaction of Reza Khan, the British had to abide by what Nicolson called a "frank and honest" note by withdrawing the ''Savars''.
In the summer of 1927, Nicolson was recalled to London and demoted to First Secretary for criticising the minister Sir
Percy Loraine
Sir Percy Lyham Loraine, 12th Baronet, (5 November 1880 – 23 May 1961) was a British diplomat. He was British High Commissioner to Egypt from 1929 to 1933, British Ambassador to Turkey from 1933 to 1939 and British Ambassador to Italy from ...
in a
dispatch. However, he was posted to
Berlin
Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...
as chargé d'affaires in 1928 and promoted as counsellor again, but he resigned from the Diplomatic Service in September 1929.
Political career
From 1930 to 1931, Nicolson edited the
Londoner's Diary
"Londoner's Diary" is a gossip column in the London ''Evening Standard''. Since 1916 the column has provided readers with witty and mischievous insights into high society; from political scandals and literary feuds to the backstage gossip at fas ...
for the ''
Evening Standard
The ''Evening Standard'', formerly ''The Standard'' (1827–1904), also known as the ''London Evening Standard'', is a local free daily newspaper in London, England, published Monday to Friday in tabloid format.
In October 2009, after be ...
'', but disliked writing about high-society gossip and quit within a year.
In 1931, he joined Sir
Oswald Mosley and his recently-formed
New Party. He stood unsuccessfully for Parliament for the
Combined English Universities in the
general election that year and edited the party newspaper, ''Action''. After Mosley formed the
British Union of Fascists
The British Union of Fascists (BUF) was a British fascist political party formed in 1932 by Oswald Mosley. Mosley changed its name to the British Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936 and, in 1937, to the British Union. In 1939, f ...
the following year, Nicolson ceased to support him.
Nicolson entered the
House of Commons as
National Labour Member of Parliament
A member of parliament (MP) is the representative in parliament of the people who live in their electoral district. In many countries with bicameral parliaments, this term refers only to members of the lower house since upper house members o ...
(MP) for
Leicester West in the
1935 election. In the latter half of the 1930s, he was one of the relatively few MPs to alert the country to the threat of
fascism
Fascism is a far-right, authoritarian, ultra-nationalist political ideology and movement,: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and t ...
. More a follower of
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 until his resignation in 1957.
Achieving rapid promo ...
in that regard than of
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
, Nicolson was still a friend of Churchill but not an intimate one. Nicolson often supported Churchill's efforts in the Commons to stiffen British resolve and support rearmament.
A Francophile, Nicolson was a close friend of
Charles Corbin, the Anglophile and anti-appeasement French ambassador to the
Court of St. James.
In October 1938, Nicolson spoke out against the
Munich Agreement
The Munich Agreement ( cs, Mnichovská dohoda; sk, Mníchovská dohoda; german: Münchner Abkommen) was an agreement concluded at Munich on 30 September 1938, by Germany, the United Kingdom, France, and Italy. It provided "cession to Germany ...
in the House of Commons:
"I know that those of us who believe in the traditions of our policy, who believe that one great function of this country is to maintain moral standards in Europe, not to make friends with people whose conduct is demonstrably evil, but to set up some sort of standard by which smaller powers can test what is good in international conduct and what is not-I know that those who hold such beliefs are accused of possessing the Foreign Office mind. I thank God that I possess a Foreign Office mind".
In June 1940, Nicolson met the French writer
André Maurois
André Maurois (; born Émile Salomon Wilhelm Herzog; 26 July 1885 – 9 October 1967) was a French author.
Biography
Maurois was born on 26 July 1885 in Elbeuf and educated at the Lycée Pierre Corneille in Rouen, both in Normandy. A member of ...
at the time when France was on the verge of defeat, which led Nicolson to write in his diary:
"June 12, 1940. I saw André Maurois in the morning. He left Paris yesterday. He said that never before in his life had he experienced such agony as he did when he saw Paris basking under a lovely summer day and realised that he might never see it again. I do feel so deeply for the French. Paris is to them what our countryside is to us. If we were to feel the lanes of Devonshire, the rocks of Cornwall and our own unflaunting England were all concentrated in one spot and likely to be wiped out, we would feel all the pain in the world".
He became
Parliamentary Secretary and official
Censor at the Ministry of Information in Churchill's 1940 wartime government of national unity, serving under
Cabinet
Cabinet or The Cabinet may refer to:
Furniture
* Cabinetry, a box-shaped piece of furniture with doors and/or drawers
* Display cabinet, a piece of furniture with one or more transparent glass sheets or transparent polycarbonate sheets
* Filin ...
member
Duff Cooper
Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich, (22 February 1890 – 1 January 1954), known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician and diplomat who was also a military and political historian.
First elected to Parliament in 19 ...
for approximately a year until he was asked by Churchill to leave his position in order to make way for
Ernest Thurtle
Ernest Thurtle (11 November 188422 August 1954) was an American-born British Labour politician.
Biography
Thurtle worked as an accountant and salesman. He saw service in the army in World War I and was badly wounded at the Battle of Cambrai. ...
MP as the Labour Party demanded more of their MPs in the Government; thereafter he was a well-respected
backbencher, especially on foreign policy issues, given his early and prominent diplomatic career. From 1941 to 1946 he was also on the
Board of Governors of the BBC.
In 1944, during the
Battle of Monte Cassino, it was widely believed that the Germans were using the Monte Cassino abbey in Italy as an observation post to direct fire down at the Allied forces in the valley below, and many demanded for the abbey to be bombed to save the lives of the Allied soldiers that were attempting to advance up the valley to take the heights of Monte Cassino, which was a key point in the Gustav line. In February 1944, Nicolson caused controversy with a column in ''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''Th ...
'' by saying that art was irreplaceable, but human life was expendable. He opposed the bombing of Monte Cassino abbey and said that it was a great work of art that itself contained many works of art that could never be replaced even if that meant the death of his own son,
Nigel Nicolson
Nigel Nicolson (19 January 1917 – 23 September 2004) was an English writer, publisher and politician.
Early life and education
Nicolson was the second son of writers Sir Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West; he had an elder brother Ben ...
, who was serving in the 8th Army as it was fighting the Battle of Monte Cassino, and that it was morally better to take thousands of dead and wounded than to destroy the abbey of Monte Cassino. Much to Nicolson's chagrin, the abbey was destroyed by an American bombing raid on 15 February 1944.
When Nicolson, a Francophile, visited France in March 1945 for the first time in five years, upon landing in France he kissed the earth.
[Bell, P. M. H. ''France and Britain, 1940–1994: The Long Separation'' London: Routledge, 2014 p. 66.] When a Frenchman asked the prostrate Nicolson "''Monsieur a laissé tomber quelque-chose?''" ("Sir, have you dropped something?"), Nicolson replied, "''Non, j'ai retrouvé quelque-chose''" ("No, I have recovered something").
The exchange is little known in Britain but is well remembered in France.
After losing his seat in the
1945 general election, he joined the
Labour Party, much to the dismay of his family, in an unsuccessful attempt to secure a hereditary peerage from
Clement Attlee ; Nicolson stood in the
1948 Croydon North by-election
The 1948 Croydon North by-election was a parliamentary by-election held in the British House of Commons constituency of Croydon North on 11 March 1948. The seat had become vacant when the Conservative Member of Parliament Henry Willink had resig ...
but lost once again.
In 1960, at the
Paris summit, Nicolson wrote about the behaviour of the
Soviet
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
Premier Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and chairman of the country's Council of Ministers from 1958 to 1964. During his rule, Khrushchev s ...
implying that he was "a little mad" and the "exchange of insults is not the best method of conducting relations between sovereign states".
Writer
Encouraged in his literary ambitions by his wife, who was also a writer, Nicolson published a biography of French poet
Paul Verlaine in 1921, which was followed by studies of other literary figures such as
Tennyson,
Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
,
Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as ''Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition ...
, and
Sainte-Beuve. In 1933, he wrote an account of the Paris Peace Conference ''Peacemaking 1919''.
Nicolson noted that "although I loathe
antisemitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
I do dislike
Jews
Jews ( he, יְהוּדִים, , ) or Jewish people are an ethnoreligious group and nation originating from the Israelites Israelite origins and kingdom: "The first act in the long drama of Jewish history is the age of the Israelites""The ...
". In his diaries he expressed trepidation over making admission as a civil servant to the
Foreign Office less exclusive: "Jews are far more interested in international life than are Englishmen. And if we opened the service it might be flooded with clever Jews."
Tony Kushner argued that he typified the antisemite who "warned publicly against the dangers of antisemitism at any level, yet privately hated the very presence of Jews". Without evidence, he assumed in his diaries in 1944 that a group of girls relaxing with American GIs were Jewish: "I am all for a little promiscuity. But nymphomania among East End Jewesses and for such large sums of money makes me sick."
Nicolson is also remembered for his 1932 novel ''Public Faces'', which foreshadowed the
nuclear bomb. A fictional account of British national policy in 1939, it tells how Britain's secretary of state tries to keep world peace with the
Royal Air Force
The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...
aggressively brandishing rocket airplanes and an atomic bomb. In today's terms, it was a multi-megaton bomb, and the geology of the
Persian Gulf
The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a mediterranean sea in Western Asia. The bo ...
played a central role, but on the other hand, the likes of Hitler was not foreseen.
After Nicolson's last attempt to enter Parliament failed, he continued with an extensive social schedule and his programme of writing, which included books, book reviews, and a weekly column for ''
The Spectator
''The Spectator'' is a weekly British magazine on politics, culture, and current affairs. It was first published in July 1828, making it the oldest surviving weekly magazine in the world.
It is owned by Frederick Barclay, who also owns ''Th ...
''.
His diary is one of the pre-eminent 20th-century British diaries and a noteworthy source on British political history from 1930 to the 1950s, particularly in regard to the period before the Second World War and the war itself. Nicolson was in positions high enough to write of the workings of the circles of power and of the day-to-day unfolding of great events. His fellow parliamentarian
Robert Bernays
Robert Hamilton Bernays (6 May 1902 – 23 January 1945) was a Liberal Party and later Liberal National politician in the United Kingdom who served as a Member of Parliament (MP) from 1931 to 1945.
Early life
Bernays was the third son and four ...
characterized Nicolson as being "a national figure of the second degree".
Nicolson was variously an acquaintance, associate, friend or intimate to such political figures as
Ramsay MacDonald,
David Lloyd George
David Lloyd George, 1st Earl Lloyd-George of Dwyfor, (17 January 1863 – 26 March 1945) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1916 to 1922. He was a Liberal Party (United Kingdom), Liberal Party politician from Wales, known for lea ...
,
Duff Cooper
Alfred Duff Cooper, 1st Viscount Norwich, (22 February 1890 – 1 January 1954), known as Duff Cooper, was a British Conservative Party politician and diplomat who was also a military and political historian.
First elected to Parliament in 19 ...
,
Charles de Gaulle
Charles André Joseph Marie de Gaulle (; ; (commonly abbreviated as CDG) 22 November 18909 November 1970) was a French army officer and statesman who led Free France against Nazi Germany in World War II and chaired the Provisional Governm ...
,
Anthony Eden
Robert Anthony Eden, 1st Earl of Avon, (12 June 1897 – 14 January 1977) was a British Conservative Party politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 1955 until his resignation in 1957.
Achieving rapid promo ...
and
Winston Churchill
Sir Winston Leonard Spencer Churchill (30 November 187424 January 1965) was a British statesman, soldier, and writer who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom twice, from 1940 to 1945 during the Second World War, and again from ...
, along with a host of literary and artistic figures, including
C. E. M. Joad of the BBC's ''
The Brains Trust''.
Family
He and his wife had two sons,
Benedict, an art historian, and
Nigel, a politician and writer. Nigel later published works by and about his parents, including ''
Portrait of a Marriage
''Portrait of a Marriage: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson'' is the 1973 biography of writer and gardener Vita Sackville-West compiled by her son Nigel Nicolson from her journals and letters.
Synopsis
The book relates to Sackville-West ...
'', their correspondence, and Nicolson's diary.
In 1930, Vita Sackville-West acquired
Sissinghurst Castle
Sissinghurst Castle Garden, at Sissinghurst in the Weald of Kent in England, was created by Vita Sackville-West, poet and writer, and her husband Harold Nicolson, author and diplomat. It is among the most famous gardens in England and is desig ...
, near
Cranbrook in
Kent
Kent is a county in South East England and one of the home counties. It borders Greater London to the north-west, Surrey to the west and East Sussex to the south-west, and Essex to the north across the estuary of the River Thames; it faces ...
. There the couple created the renowned gardens that are now run by the
National Trust
The National Trust, formally the National Trust for Places of Historic Interest or Natural Beauty, is a charity and membership organisation for heritage conservation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. In Scotland, there is a separate and ...
.
Honours
He was appointed
Knight Commander of the Royal Victorian Order (KCVO) in 1953 as a reward for writing the official biography of
George V
George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936.
Born during the reign of his grandmother ...
, which had been published the previous year.
[ Also under . Published in America as Also under .]
There is a
blue plaque commemorating him and his wife on their house in
Ebury Street, London SW1.
Works
Many of the books are online.
[Se]
Internet Archive
/ref>
* '' Paul Verlaine'' (Constable, 1921)
* ''Sweet Waters'' (Constable, 1921) novel; new edition in 2012 by Eland
* '' Tennyson: Aspects of His Life, Character and Poetry'' (Constable, 1923)
* ''Byron
George Gordon Byron, 6th Baron Byron (22 January 1788 – 19 April 1824), known simply as Lord Byron, was an English romantic poet and peer. He was one of the leading figures of the Romantic movement, and has been regarded as among the ...
: The Last Journey'' (Constable, 1924)
* ''Swinburne
Algernon Charles Swinburne (5 April 1837 – 10 April 1909) was an English poet, playwright, novelist, and critic. He wrote several novels and collections of poetry such as ''Poems and Ballads'', and contributed to the famous Eleventh Edition ...
'' (Macmillan, 1926)
* ''Some People'' (Constable, 1927)
* ''The Development of English Biography'' (The Hogarth Press, 1927) (Hogarth Lectures No. 4)
* ''Swinburne and Baudelaire: The Zaharoff Lecture'' (The Clarendon Press, 1930)
* ''Portrait of a Diplomatist: Being the Life of Sir Arthur Nicolson, First Lord Carnock, and a Study of the Origins of the Great War'' (Houghton Mifflin, 1930
online
* ''People and Things: Wireless Talks'' (Constable, 1931)
* ''Public Faces: A Novel'' (Constable, 1932) novel
* ''Peacemaking 1919'' (Constable, 1933
online
* '' Curzon: The Last Phase, 1919–1925: A Study in Post-War Diplomacy'' (Constable, 1934)
* '' Dwight Morrow'' (Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1935)
* ''Politics on the Train'' (Constable, 1936)
* ''Helen's Tower'' (Constable, 1937)
* ''Small Talk'' (Constable, 1937)
* ''Diplomacy'' (Thornton Butterworth, 1939) (Home University Library of Modern Knowledge)
* ''Marginal Comment (January 6 – August 4, 1939)'' (Constable, 1939)
* ''Why Britain is at War
''Why Britain is at War'' is a polemic treatise written by Harold Nicolson and first published by Penguin Books on 7 November 1939 shortly after the Second World War began. In the book, Nicolson explores Adolf Hitler's insatiable grasp for pow ...
'' (Penguin Books, 1939) (Penguin Specials)
* ''The Desire to Please: The Story of Hamilton Rowan and the United Irishmen'' (Constable, 1943)
* ''The Poetry of Byron: The English Association Presidential Address, August 1943'' (Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
, 1943)
* ''Friday Mornings 1941–1944'' (Constable, 1944)
* ''England: An Anthology'' (Macmillan, 1944)
* ''Another World Than This: An Anthology'' (Michael Joseph, 1945) edited with Vita Sackville-West
* ''The Congress of Vienna
The Congress of Vienna (, ) of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon ...
: A Study in Allied Unity: 1812–1822'' (Constable, 1946)
* ''Comments 1944–1948'' (Constable, 1948) – collected articles from the ''Spectator''
* ''Benjamin Constant'' (Constable, 1949)
* ''King George V
George V (George Frederick Ernest Albert; 3 June 1865 – 20 January 1936) was King of the United Kingdom and the British Dominions, and Emperor of India, from 6 May 1910 until his death in 1936.
Born during the reign of his grandmother Qu ...
'' (Constable, 1952)
* ''The Evolution of Diplomacy'' (Constable, 1954) – Chichele Lectures 1953
* ''The English Sense of Humour and other Essays'' (The Dropmore Press, 1946)
* ''Good Behaviour, being a Study of Certain Types of Civility'' (Constable, 1955)
* ''Sainte-Beuve'' (Constable, 1957)
* ''Journey to Java'' (London: Constable
A constable is a person holding a particular office, most commonly in criminal law enforcement. The office of constable can vary significantly in different jurisdictions. A constable is commonly the rank of an officer within the police. Other peop ...
, 1957)
* ''The Age of Reason
''The Age of Reason; Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology'' is a work by English and American political activist Thomas Paine, arguing for the philosophical position of deism. It follows in the tradition of 18th-century Briti ...
(1700–1789)'' (Constable, 1960)
* ''Tennyson: Aspects of his Life, Character and Poetry'' (Arrow, 1960) (Grey Arrow Books, no. 39)
* ''Monarchy'' ( Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962)
* ''Diaries and Letters 1930–39''; ''Diaries and Letters 1939–45''; ''Diaries and Letters 1945–62'' (Collins, 1966–68) - edited by Nigel Nicolson
See also
* List of Bloomsbury Group people
This is a list of people associated with the Bloomsbury Group. Much about the group is controversial, including its membership: it has been said that "the three words 'the Bloomsbury group' have been so much used as to have become almost unusable". ...
References
Further reading
* Bristow-Smith, Laurence. ''Harold Nicolson: Half-an-Eye on History''. Letterworth Press, 2014. .
* Cannadine, David. "Portrait of More Than a Marriage: Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West Revisited", from ''Aspects of Aristocracy'', pp. 210–42. (Yale University Press
Yale University Press is the university press of Yale University. It was founded in 1908 by George Parmly Day, and became an official department of Yale University in 1961, but it remains financially and operationally autonomous.
, Yale Univers ...
, 1994), .
* Dawkins, Charlie. "Harold Nicolson, Ulysses, Reithianism: Censorship on BBC Radio, 1931". ''Review of English Studies'' 67.280 (2016): 558-578
online
* Drinkwater, Derek. ''Sir Harold Nicolson & International Relations'', (Oxford University Press
Oxford University Press (OUP) is the university press of the University of Oxford. It is the largest university press in the world, and its printing history dates back to the 1480s. Having been officially granted the legal right to print book ...
, 2005), .
* Kershner, R. Brandon. "Harold Nicolson's Visit with Joyce". ''James Joyce Quarterly'' 39.2 (2002): 325-330
online
* Lees-Milne, James, ''Harold Nicolson, A Biography'', ( Chatto & Windus), 1980, Vol. I (1886–1929), ; 1981, Vol. II (1930–1968),
vol 2 online
* Nicolson, Nigel
Nigel Nicolson (19 January 1917 – 23 September 2004) was an English writer, publisher and politician.
Early life and education
Nicolson was the second son of writers Sir Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West; he had an elder brother Ben ...
. ''Portrait of a Marriage
''Portrait of a Marriage: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson'' is the 1973 biography of writer and gardener Vita Sackville-West compiled by her son Nigel Nicolson from her journals and letters.
Synopsis
The book relates to Sackville-West ...
'', ( Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973)
online
* Rose, Norman. ''Harold Nicolson'' (Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape is a London publishing firm founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape, who was head of the firm until his death in 1960.
Cape and his business partner Wren Howard set up the publishing house in 1921. They established a reputation ...
, 2005), .
* Thirriard, Maryam. "Harold Nicolson the New Biographer". ''Les Grandes Figures historiques dans les lettres et les arts'' 6bis (2017
online
* Young, John W. "Harold Nicolson and Appeasement", in ''Shaping British Foreign and Defence Policy in the Twentieth Century'' (Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2014) pp. 136–15
online
Primary sources
* Rich, Margaret Sherry. "The Harold Nicolson Papers". ''Princeton University Library Chronicle'' 65.1 (2003): 105-109
online
* Nicolson, Nigel, (ed.) ''The Harold Nicolson Diaries 1907–1963'' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2004),
* Nicolson, Nigel, (ed.) ''Vita and Harold. The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson 1910–1962'' (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1992), .
External links
*
*
*
* Harold Nicolson Papers. General Collection, Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Yale University.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nicolson, Harold
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20th-century English novelists
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