Life Regained: Diaries 1970-1972

Diaries of Frances Partridge #6

by Frances Partridge

Frances Partridge is the last remaining survivor of the legendary Bloomsbury group. She began to publish her diaries at the age of seventy and they were immediately hailed as an unexpected literary event. After many years she has decided to publish the sixth volume of her diaries which follows her life during the years of 1970 and 1971.
She lives and writes with an acute sensitivity to all things in life whether it is the first fall of snow in winter, a close friend caught in a desperate love triangle, a mesmerising performance of an opera, the dazzling wit of a dinner-party companion.
In this diary she travels with friends to Russia to visit Nicholas Henderson, then the British ambassador in Warsaw, to Poland, and to Spain to see Gerald Brenan. Other friends and acquaintances include Janetta and Jaime Parlade, Robert Kee, Dadie Rylands, Heywood Hill, the composer Lennox Berkeley, Cyril Connolly, the Spenders, the Duke of Devonshire, and Michael Holroyd.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction

256 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1998

About the author

Frances Partridge CBE was the last surviving member of the Bloomsbury Group. She is most known for her diaries.

Her father was William Cecil Marshall, architect and runner-up in the very first Wimbledon tournament. She was the sister of Ray Garnett and Thomas Marshall.

Reviews

[Paulo Santos · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've been reading and enjoying Frances Partridge's diaries, and really love her personality, and the way she came into her own voice, after being a chronicler of Bloomsbury, then her bereavement for Ralph Partridge and her finding her own way in life. But, even if still an enjoyable read, I found this volume much weaker than the previous ones, maybe because the people she talks about now are much less interesting and her life, settled in a comfortable ageing, much less eventful. Still a few interesting pages, but wouldn't have any interest if I wasn't already familiar with her previous life.

[Helen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just two years here, mainly taken up with visits to friends or holidays abroad (either travelling with others or staying with friends). She was a good diarist, sharp observations sometimes of other people's behaviour. The circles in which she moved are quite complicated to follow, with all their intermarriages and connections: at least the later volumes of diaries include a dramatis personae and footnotes, done less intrusively than the many interruptions to the text which were in the earliest volume. Frances Partridge seems to have had a social conscience and to have been aware of what a privileged life she was leading, whereas some of her friends appear to have been rather spoiled and querulous. I am only reading the volumes available in the library, so I have missed the previous instalment.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

It would've been helpful to have been at least somewhat familiar with the Bloomsbury group at the outset, which I was not. Otherwise, the personae become overwhelming partway through - in spite of a given (partial) Cast of Characters, and footnotes on others (averaging one per page, often more!)

[Adrian]

All Partridge's diaries are good. Full of sharp thinking and bright talk. This one isn't perhaps her best. She's unsettled here, the estrangement from Julia Strachey is only part of her problem. She takes trips to Russia, Italy and Corfu and gets much pleasure from seeing Janetta marry Jaime.

[Angela · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really interesting insights. Not always easy to keep track of the cast of characters, but if you've got this far in the series of diaries, you've obviously not let that put you off.