Fallodon Papers

by Edward Grey of Fallodon

First edition. Kirkus 29 . Previous owner's engraved bookplate on front pastedown, also his name and a date written on the page facing the half-title. top edge gilded. Outer edges have begun to fox. vii, 177, 3 pages. black cloth-covered boards. 8vo..

Hardcover

Reviews

[Simon · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a collection of short papers written in the early 1920s by Lord Grey the former British foreign secretary famous for his “ lamps are going off all over Europe “ quite who steered foreign policy from 1905 to 1916.

I read these because Lord Alanbrooke CIGS during WW2 found such solace in them at the height of the crisis and I was intrigued to find in what they consisted .

In fact they are a very coherent blissful series of musings on how to stay sane by communing with your inner self through the medium of nature and contemplation. Interesting that 2 of our wartime leaders got such joy from bird watching , fly fishing , reading generally and reading Wordsworth particularly.

The tone of the narrator here is languid, kindly civilised . It is an insight into a long past world but where the attractions of nature and the ensuing contemplation are ballast against the flim flam of worldly troubles .