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Another Self
James Lees-Milne, writer and architectural historian, is probably best remembered for his mischievously perceptive diaries, which chronicled the doings of upper-class English society from the Second World War onwards in twelve addictive volumes. Another Self, his fanciful, funny, yet poignant account of his early years, has the same gripping quality.
A deeply religious child, Jim spent much of his childhood wandering dreamily in the grounds of his parents’ medieval manor house, Wickhamford Manor in Worcestershire. It gave him a nostalgia for the past and a love of historic buildings which would lead to his later distinguished career with the National Trust. His father, however, had no time whatsoever for such arty attitudes. He determined that, after leaving Eton in 1926, Jim should ‘stand on his own feet’ and accordingly enrolled him in Miss Blakeney’s Stenography School for Young Ladies in Chelsea where, as the only male student, he spent a lonely year learning shorthand and typing.
Thanks to his mother he escaped to Oxford (a disappointment) and thence to London, where he had another searing experience as assistant to Sir Roderick Jones, the boorish and dyspeptic chairman of Reuters. Droll, shy and sexually ambivalent, James Lees-Milne wrote that he ‘always felt an outsider in every circle’. It was this, combined with his eye for detail and highly developed sense of the ridiculous, that made him such a wonderful comic writer. John Betjeman compared the impact of Another Self to that of Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall.
A deeply religious child, Jim spent much of his childhood wandering dreamily in the grounds of his parents’ medieval manor house, Wickhamford Manor in Worcestershire. It gave him a nostalgia for the past and a love of historic buildings which would lead to his later distinguished career with the National Trust. His father, however, had no time whatsoever for such arty attitudes. He determined that, after leaving Eton in 1926, Jim should ‘stand on his own feet’ and accordingly enrolled him in Miss Blakeney’s Stenography School for Young Ladies in Chelsea where, as the only male student, he spent a lonely year learning shorthand and typing.
Thanks to his mother he escaped to Oxford (a disappointment) and thence to London, where he had another searing experience as assistant to Sir Roderick Jones, the boorish and dyspeptic chairman of Reuters. Droll, shy and sexually ambivalent, James Lees-Milne wrote that he ‘always felt an outsider in every circle’. It was this, combined with his eye for detail and highly developed sense of the ridiculous, that made him such a wonderful comic writer. John Betjeman compared the impact of Another Self to that of Evelyn Waugh’s Decline and Fall.
256 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1970
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262 people want to read
About the author
James Lees-Milne
87 books20 followersJames Lees-Milne (1908-1997) was an English writer and expert on country houses.
Biography
He was a noted biographer and historian, and is also considered one of the twentieth century's great diarists. He came from a family of landed gentry and grew up in Worcestershire. He attended Lockers Park Prep School, Eton and Oxford University. In 1936 he was appointed secretary of the Country House Committee of the National Trust, and he held that position until 1950 apart from a period of military service from 1939-1941. He was instrumental in the first large scale transfer of country houses from private ownership to the Trust. After resigning his full-time position in 1950 he continued his connection with the National Trust as a part time architectural consultant.
He resided on the Badminton Estate in Gloucestershire for most of his later years while working in William Thomas Beckford's library at Lansdown Crescent at Bath. He was a friend of many of the most prominent British intellectual and social figures of his day, including Nancy Mitford, Harold Nicolson (about whom he wrote a two-volume biography), and Cyril Connolly. He married Alvilde Chaplin, formerly Bridges, a prominent gardening and landscape expert, in 1951.
From 1947 Lees-Milne published a series of architectural works aimed primarily at the general reader. He was also a diarist, and his diaries were published in many volumes and were well received, in later years attracting a cult following. His other works included several biographies and an autobiographical novel.
Biography
He was a noted biographer and historian, and is also considered one of the twentieth century's great diarists. He came from a family of landed gentry and grew up in Worcestershire. He attended Lockers Park Prep School, Eton and Oxford University. In 1936 he was appointed secretary of the Country House Committee of the National Trust, and he held that position until 1950 apart from a period of military service from 1939-1941. He was instrumental in the first large scale transfer of country houses from private ownership to the Trust. After resigning his full-time position in 1950 he continued his connection with the National Trust as a part time architectural consultant.
He resided on the Badminton Estate in Gloucestershire for most of his later years while working in William Thomas Beckford's library at Lansdown Crescent at Bath. He was a friend of many of the most prominent British intellectual and social figures of his day, including Nancy Mitford, Harold Nicolson (about whom he wrote a two-volume biography), and Cyril Connolly. He married Alvilde Chaplin, formerly Bridges, a prominent gardening and landscape expert, in 1951.
From 1947 Lees-Milne published a series of architectural works aimed primarily at the general reader. He was also a diarist, and his diaries were published in many volumes and were well received, in later years attracting a cult following. His other works included several biographies and an autobiographical novel.
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Displaying 1 - 20 of 20 reviews
March 18, 2024
This so-called "memoir" is almost too good to be true. The author is mentioned in the Letters of Nancy Mitford and several GRs praised it as hilarious and that sort of thing. The writing is very elegant; each entry is an adroitly shaped short story. Lees-Milne, who seems to have a coterie in the UK, evokes Nancy Mitford, Evelyn Waugh and Patrick Dennis. The author is one of those remarkably civilized Brits whose pen is as nimble as his mind. Here's a poignant social comedy that, at times, suggests a plunge down a large rabbit-hole.
Lees-Milne spins various tales about a lonely little kid growing up whose comfortable birth and social position connected him to upper-crusties (diplomats, tycoons, publishers) who once ruled the UK. Probably they still do. He spent about 25 years trying to find a personality and finally succeeded. His "story" arrives w famous plot tropes that we're familiar with. Example: his scatty mum, taking him by train to boarding school when he's 8 years old, alights at a station to buy a newspaper -- and misses the train. What's a tot to do? Do not panic. Mum, it turns out, is with the engine-driver in his cabin. Later when Mum decides to bolt, and get away from his blustery, boring father, she takes him to meet the top "ballooner" in England. She leaps into the balloon basket w the glamorous ballooner and trills to son: "See you in a few months." Down, down, down. (Remember the Bolter in Mitford's novel?)
At Eton L-M had a romance with Tom Mitford, killed in W2, and he explains that whatever sex (m/f) was the object of his passion was always welcome. Bowing to convention, he married, some background reveals, a very U woman who had upper-crusty female lovers.
Along the way he first learns typing and shorthand because he really cannot do anything, and this leads to slots as personal secretary to toffs. He even worked for cranky Reuters topper Sir Roderick Jones, who was married to the worldly beauty Enid Bagnold. W2 interrupts his reverie. One chapter details the Blitz, and though he's amused by class distinctions and "hopes they endure forever, they are part of the spice of life," he's pleased to meet an unknown woman by telephone when a bomb gives him a crossed line. They agree not to exchange names or meet for McGuffin reasons -- another trope -- and their phone chats go on for months providing hope and optimism and strength. Ah, Grosvenor 8527! Until, yes, (in a dark mood shift) he eventually learns from the operator that the house this number belonged to recently suffered a direct hit.
He loved the unknown woman who refused to tell him her name or where she lived. Well, maybe after the war. "All right, my darling," he told her, "but we may have ages to wait." FADEOUT. The [White] Knight said.."It's my own invention." With a little more jam I may give this item another read now that I believe chunks are fiction.
Lees-Milne spins various tales about a lonely little kid growing up whose comfortable birth and social position connected him to upper-crusties (diplomats, tycoons, publishers) who once ruled the UK. Probably they still do. He spent about 25 years trying to find a personality and finally succeeded. His "story" arrives w famous plot tropes that we're familiar with. Example: his scatty mum, taking him by train to boarding school when he's 8 years old, alights at a station to buy a newspaper -- and misses the train. What's a tot to do? Do not panic. Mum, it turns out, is with the engine-driver in his cabin. Later when Mum decides to bolt, and get away from his blustery, boring father, she takes him to meet the top "ballooner" in England. She leaps into the balloon basket w the glamorous ballooner and trills to son: "See you in a few months." Down, down, down. (Remember the Bolter in Mitford's novel?)
At Eton L-M had a romance with Tom Mitford, killed in W2, and he explains that whatever sex (m/f) was the object of his passion was always welcome. Bowing to convention, he married, some background reveals, a very U woman who had upper-crusty female lovers.
Along the way he first learns typing and shorthand because he really cannot do anything, and this leads to slots as personal secretary to toffs. He even worked for cranky Reuters topper Sir Roderick Jones, who was married to the worldly beauty Enid Bagnold. W2 interrupts his reverie. One chapter details the Blitz, and though he's amused by class distinctions and "hopes they endure forever, they are part of the spice of life," he's pleased to meet an unknown woman by telephone when a bomb gives him a crossed line. They agree not to exchange names or meet for McGuffin reasons -- another trope -- and their phone chats go on for months providing hope and optimism and strength. Ah, Grosvenor 8527! Until, yes, (in a dark mood shift) he eventually learns from the operator that the house this number belonged to recently suffered a direct hit.
He loved the unknown woman who refused to tell him her name or where she lived. Well, maybe after the war. "All right, my darling," he told her, "but we may have ages to wait." FADEOUT. The [White] Knight said.."It's my own invention." With a little more jam I may give this item another read now that I believe chunks are fiction.
November 20, 2014
Oh, I laughed out loud at this one. It was a scream from start to finish. James Lees Milne is one of the best diarists of the last one hundred years. He's the Samuel Pepys of the 20th Century. However, Another Self is his "memoir" (put in quotation marks because several writers dispute the truthfulness of his accounts). But I don't care if everything he wrote was bologna. It was delicious bologna and hilarious bologna. He was raised by lunatic parents and his stories about them had me in tears. Also, he wrote about his adventures at school and his military service afterwards. It's a short book and a breeze to read. You will not be disappointed.
(Btw, Milne may be the one of the greatest preservers of English architecture in the 20th Century. He joined Britain's National Trust in its early days and thereafter went about saving a host of country estates which had fallen into disrepair, most of which were slated for destruction. Because of him and his cohorts, there are many real-life Downtown Abbeys in existence today.)
(Btw, Milne may be the one of the greatest preservers of English architecture in the 20th Century. He joined Britain's National Trust in its early days and thereafter went about saving a host of country estates which had fallen into disrepair, most of which were slated for destruction. Because of him and his cohorts, there are many real-life Downtown Abbeys in existence today.)
April 21, 2025
I must have stumbled across this title in 1,000 Books to Read Before You Die, but I feel like this author has probably been referenced in other books I've read. James Lees-Milne was an English author, best known for his published diaries. His writing reminded me of David Sedaris. It wasn't that same laugh-until-you-cry humor, but the way he described himself, his relationships, and his observations of people had a Sedaris vibe.
I liked the first four or five chapters the most. If I had been reading in my kindle, I would have been highlighting the whole time, but I was reading a print copy from the library and was being lazy about taking notes. I did take the time to make a note of a description of his mother I liked.
The book has eight chapters and covers a long stretch of years--childhood through his early thirties during World War 2. It's not a long book, so I imagine his other diaries might go into more detail about these periods of his life. His younger years interested me more--or at least, I thought the anecdotes were funnier--but I enjoyed his writing, and I plan to seek out more.
I liked the first four or five chapters the most. If I had been reading in my kindle, I would have been highlighting the whole time, but I was reading a print copy from the library and was being lazy about taking notes. I did take the time to make a note of a description of his mother I liked.
So she shifted like quicksilver in a barometer, exasperating her employers, charming her colleagues, trying most desperately, failing most delightfully, loved and forgiven by all.
The book has eight chapters and covers a long stretch of years--childhood through his early thirties during World War 2. It's not a long book, so I imagine his other diaries might go into more detail about these periods of his life. His younger years interested me more--or at least, I thought the anecdotes were funnier--but I enjoyed his writing, and I plan to seek out more.
September 11, 2014
2.5*
The first couple chapters were hilarious (the book is worth it for these alone). Lees-Milne can really write, there's no question about that. And he's brutally honest about himself, seems to consider himself a misfit, in most ways a failure, with a tendency to cowardice. This honesty combined with the harshness of his father, predisposed me to feel sympathetic towards him - until he brought up how he supported Mosley, and then baffled me by writing statements like these, "I never feel superior to anyone, nor the least awkward among people who belong to a lower (or indeed higher) social level than my own. On the other hand, the middle and lower classes ( I refer to the Anglo-Saxon, not Latin) are horribly self-conscious when out of their own environment. Since I do not care to stay in their environment for long, and they are ill at ease in mine, there is no mutual territory on which heart-felt intimacy between us can very well take place...I am acutely conscious of and amused by class distinctions. I love them and hope they endure forever." (pg.77) Twenty pages later he says this, "There is nothing in life more pathetic than the wounded pride of little people, especially women." !!! Little people? I assume that means people inferior to him?!! I was put off, but kept on. People are complicated, can't be summed up in a statement or two, I realize that. He goes on to talk about his love for architecture and how during the war he was "...far more worried by the loss of the old buildings of Dover than the lives. I would gladly have offered mine for the preservation of the Regency terraces along the sea front." (pg. 143)
Not a perspective I can relate to, that.
On the other hand, his stories about Theo, and the woman he loved but never met were quite moving and felt somehow metaphoric for his life - as if he were always by some glitch or blip to be prevented from experiencing real human acceptance and intimacy.
James Lees-Milne was an interesting man. I'd recommend this book. It's full of contradictions - which for me made it real and vibrant. And then there's the excellent writing...
The first couple chapters were hilarious (the book is worth it for these alone). Lees-Milne can really write, there's no question about that. And he's brutally honest about himself, seems to consider himself a misfit, in most ways a failure, with a tendency to cowardice. This honesty combined with the harshness of his father, predisposed me to feel sympathetic towards him - until he brought up how he supported Mosley, and then baffled me by writing statements like these, "I never feel superior to anyone, nor the least awkward among people who belong to a lower (or indeed higher) social level than my own. On the other hand, the middle and lower classes ( I refer to the Anglo-Saxon, not Latin) are horribly self-conscious when out of their own environment. Since I do not care to stay in their environment for long, and they are ill at ease in mine, there is no mutual territory on which heart-felt intimacy between us can very well take place...I am acutely conscious of and amused by class distinctions. I love them and hope they endure forever." (pg.77) Twenty pages later he says this, "There is nothing in life more pathetic than the wounded pride of little people, especially women." !!! Little people? I assume that means people inferior to him?!! I was put off, but kept on. People are complicated, can't be summed up in a statement or two, I realize that. He goes on to talk about his love for architecture and how during the war he was "...far more worried by the loss of the old buildings of Dover than the lives. I would gladly have offered mine for the preservation of the Regency terraces along the sea front." (pg. 143)
Not a perspective I can relate to, that.
On the other hand, his stories about Theo, and the woman he loved but never met were quite moving and felt somehow metaphoric for his life - as if he were always by some glitch or blip to be prevented from experiencing real human acceptance and intimacy.
James Lees-Milne was an interesting man. I'd recommend this book. It's full of contradictions - which for me made it real and vibrant. And then there's the excellent writing...
March 2, 2014
Reviews will be short bc I've read about 50 books since my last review...I just never think about putting them here when I've finished. Reading all of the memoirs by James Lees-Milne would give a beautiful, deadly accurate, somewhat snarky, and brilliantly told social history of people of all stamps and also the political history of England for the years covered during this amazing man's activity as a diarist. As a memoirist, L-M is brutally honest about his feelings, his motives, his failings, and desires, without the egocentricity of Harold Nicholson (I did like his diaries, though), the immature recounting of Duff Cooper's extramarital affairs (can this be the same man [and the ONLY man] who resigned from the Cabinet in disgust after Chamberlain's "peace in our time" visit to Germany, or the sophisticated biographer of Tallyrand?!) . Unlike Chips Channon, who is quoted widely in regards to his experiences with the same set of people (though he had fewer friends and encounters by far), L-M appears to hold nothing back about himself, which allowed me to trust his judgement of many historical figures of his time. When looking back to make comparison, Channon is frequently fatuous and petty as he squirmed and slimed his way up the social ladder, only to find himself holding the baby when the Abdication Crisis smoke cleared. And I don't think there is a diarist's writing that has ever made made such an impact on me for it's fluidity and vividness of description of places, people, houses, emotions, friendships, lovers...I felt as though I could hear L-M's voice and feel what he was feeling, at times, and if he was occasionally immature, he was at least honest about it. He made me frequently sorry I had not lived when he lived, in England, which was no sinecure. If you've not read much about Britain from the Edwardian age through the 60's or so, you might want to keep a pad of paper and pen with you as you read so as not to forget people and places to look up and read about later. Excellent.
June 8, 2012
Exquisitely written, subtle and touching memoir.
March 9, 2011
In spite of the fact that I have been a National Trust Lover for 25 years, I know almost nothing about the man who almost single-handedly started the trust. His diaries were very interesting and he writes extremely well, but I found his self-deprecation tiring after a while. If he is so stupid and inept how did he manage to accomplish so much? It was interesting to see, once again, how incestuous (not in the most technical sense of the word) the English upper class was and how being well-connected seemed to have made Lees-Milne's professional life possible (since he was so untalented).
December 28, 2022
I have rated this a little uncharitably. It's often very funny, definitely fascinating, and ends beautifully and sadly. But although I very much liked the young Lees-Milne of the first few chapters, I couldn't warm to him after the age of about eleven and was sick of his company by the end. A charming man in real life, I expect, but dull and entitled on paper (and worryingly kind about Mosley).
February 28, 2011
Fabulous. Hilarious, penetrating about class, doesn't scruple to admit to opinions out of tune with the zeitgeist, all in the context of a memoir in miniature.
December 23, 2023
3.51 stars, rounded up.
Dear James (if I may),
I have questions.
I have so many questions about your elegantly written and subtly funny memoir.
So many questions about all the things you're not telling us.
Like that time your mum ran away in a balloon.
Like that time your dad dumped you, his expensively educated eldest son, in a secretarial school, because ... well, apparently he was nearly as clueless about the world of work as he considered you to be.
Like that time your Eton friends assumed — apparently without prior warning — that you'd be fine to drag up with them, then go to a local hotel and dance with some blokes.
Especially that, actually.
But no matter — we need not search your works for dropped hairpins. You have a charming habit of handing them to us with a diffident smile, often when we're least expecting it.
This, of course, was largely why I started collecting your diaries in the first place. Queer sensibility in unexpected places. Oh and the waspish gossip. The spilling of the tea on the personalities of mid-century intelligentsia. So good. (I mean, one certainly wouldn't read you for your religious or political philosophies, my pet. But no matter. What would we expect in someone who saved posh people's houses for a living most of his life?)
But, come now, James, this isn't a memoir really, is it? It's more a picaresque novel based on your life. You seem to drift through it like an innocent abroad. With — as you tell it — surprisingly little agency. And, in some ways, the world seems to have surprisingly little effect on you. You —your narrative voice — floats above it all like a sylph. Cool, observant, always ready with the wry quip and the quick cut-away to the next absurdity.
Though — I'll be honest, and this is why I couldn't bring myself to give you four stars — in the last third or so, you suffer a bit from your own narrative choices. Having set up a picaresque novel for us, with each chapter more or less complete in itself and only a vague sense of growth and progress through them, it's a bit discordant to suddenly be reading your grown up musings on life, politics, religion (though you did give us plenty of clues about that early on) and sexuality.
In any other memoir, we'd have had that bread-crumbed all the way through, and wouldn't have noticed.
But somehow, the spell was broken and the last few chapters and, I'm sorry lad, I just wasn't quite with you any more.
On the other hand, you did give us this:
See what I mean? Unexpected.
And then there's the diaries. The early ones are ... just a whole world to wander through.
You somehow have the talent of making nearly anything readable and endlessly amusing.
Thanks, lad
H. Snark
Dear James (if I may),
I have questions.
I have so many questions about your elegantly written and subtly funny memoir.
So many questions about all the things you're not telling us.
Like that time your mum ran away in a balloon.
Like that time your dad dumped you, his expensively educated eldest son, in a secretarial school, because ... well, apparently he was nearly as clueless about the world of work as he considered you to be.
Like that time your Eton friends assumed — apparently without prior warning — that you'd be fine to drag up with them, then go to a local hotel and dance with some blokes.
Especially that, actually.
But no matter — we need not search your works for dropped hairpins. You have a charming habit of handing them to us with a diffident smile, often when we're least expecting it.
This, of course, was largely why I started collecting your diaries in the first place. Queer sensibility in unexpected places. Oh and the waspish gossip. The spilling of the tea on the personalities of mid-century intelligentsia. So good. (I mean, one certainly wouldn't read you for your religious or political philosophies, my pet. But no matter. What would we expect in someone who saved posh people's houses for a living most of his life?)
But, come now, James, this isn't a memoir really, is it? It's more a picaresque novel based on your life. You seem to drift through it like an innocent abroad. With — as you tell it — surprisingly little agency. And, in some ways, the world seems to have surprisingly little effect on you. You —your narrative voice — floats above it all like a sylph. Cool, observant, always ready with the wry quip and the quick cut-away to the next absurdity.
Though — I'll be honest, and this is why I couldn't bring myself to give you four stars — in the last third or so, you suffer a bit from your own narrative choices. Having set up a picaresque novel for us, with each chapter more or less complete in itself and only a vague sense of growth and progress through them, it's a bit discordant to suddenly be reading your grown up musings on life, politics, religion (though you did give us plenty of clues about that early on) and sexuality.
In any other memoir, we'd have had that bread-crumbed all the way through, and wouldn't have noticed.
But somehow, the spell was broken and the last few chapters and, I'm sorry lad, I just wasn't quite with you any more.
On the other hand, you did give us this:
Thenceforward I was repeatedly falling in love with someone or other, and it did not seem to me to matter whether with a woman or man, provided the one was womanly and the other manly. In other words whichever sex happened to be the object of my passion, that passion in my eyes was perfectly normal and praiseworthy. (Perversion on the contrary, strikes me as being a delight in the transmutation of natural qualities, a think which I have nothing against in principle but which does not suit my metabolism.) Furthermore I could be genuinely and deeply in love with more than one person at a time, a state of affairs which most people have little sympathy, particularly the contemporaneous loved ones. They are inclined to be disapproving and censorious. But here again, I do not see why a person has to be blamed, or reviled, for indulging in multiple sentiments if these come quite naturally to him and are harmless to the world at large. I have never been in love with more than three people at once, and then not for longer than six months. ... After all a man's reserved of love, both human and spiritual are, unlike money, inexhaustible, and do not have to be rationed among recipients.
See what I mean? Unexpected.
And then there's the diaries. The early ones are ... just a whole world to wander through.
You somehow have the talent of making nearly anything readable and endlessly amusing.
Thanks, lad
H. Snark
June 1, 2025
I was recommended this by a dear older friend whose opinion in reading matters I trust and value - as being a "very funny read". I normally trust my friend's opinions on life and art but I guess when it comes to transient and such easily changeable mores, humour does not always age well. I guess the further back you go in time, certain authors retain their intrinsically humorous qualities like Trollope for example. But in this instance, I found Lees-Milne autobiographical vignettes really really sad.
I could not see the comic side but maybe because this is, when stripped down, a very very sad retrospective of some very sad episodes in Lees-Milne's life. I am not often one to sit on the fence, or am of a left-leaning disposition at all, however I found some of his political views rather shocking; and if I am being fair, I do think he was as close to being on the far-right as possible in Britain at the time in the inter-war period approaching WWII. An interesting read, and one I would not have arrived at by myself, but not one I would recommend or chose to remember. 2.5 stars.
I could not see the comic side but maybe because this is, when stripped down, a very very sad retrospective of some very sad episodes in Lees-Milne's life. I am not often one to sit on the fence, or am of a left-leaning disposition at all, however I found some of his political views rather shocking; and if I am being fair, I do think he was as close to being on the far-right as possible in Britain at the time in the inter-war period approaching WWII. An interesting read, and one I would not have arrived at by myself, but not one I would recommend or chose to remember. 2.5 stars.
October 3, 2022
This was one of those books you pick up at a second hand bookshop while browsing with little to no backround infromation. I must say this book took me by surprise, it was fun. Now I still cant tell if the stories in this are real or not as they seem too chaotic to be true. Nonetheless, I immensely enjoyed reading through his point of view of his life as a young man in london and the things he got himself into. The parts I enjoyed most were how genuine his opinions were and how real he was describing himself and his life.
December 1, 2015
Lees-Milne, whose diaries are amongst my favourite 'easy-reading' books, produced another great volume here. Witty and incisive (both regarding himself and others), Another Self is definitely worth reading, even for those who might well find the subject matter less than scintillating at first glance.
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February 15, 2011http://www.bookcrossing.com/journal/4...
I own a copy and bookcrossed a copy.
I own a copy and bookcrossed a copy.
April 18, 2017
Every one a joy.
January 13, 2024
I thought this memoir started off well — he wrote this when he was 62...a good deal of it dealt with the period from when he was a young boy up to when I think he was in his mid-30s. Lees-Milne is known for his set of diaries. The diaries were published in XX volumes. How to characterized the diaries.... Well, I’ve read all but one of them and I have reviewed them: this is how they are described in a website devoted to him and his life (although it looks like it is no longer active):
• “...(his diaries) which have been described as 'one of the treasures of contemporary English literature'. Many have hailed him as the greatest English diarist of the twentieth century, and compared him to Samuel Pepys. As well as providing a wealth of fascinating detail about his work, friendships and attachments, JLM's diaries are remarkable for the sharpness with which he observes the world around him, the candour with which he writes about himself and others, his alternation of tone between the comic and the poignant, and his ability to capture the essence of a scene in a few words.” (https://www.jamesleesmilne.com/books....)
Anyway these are not his diaries...it reads like a memoir. In his diaries whenever he mentioned this book, I seem to recall him saying that it was not an accurate rendition of his life. I enjoyed reading about him interacting with his mother and father. But then when he was shipped off to boarding school the book became less interesting to me. So I’d give the first half of the book 3.5 stars and then the second half of the book at most 2.5 stars. So I’ll give it 3 stars...I don’t think it rises to the occasion of a 4-star book and this is from someone who pretty much has loved his diaries.
Reviews:
• https://foxedquarterly.com/james-lees... (Grant McIntyre said this in his review so I was right about remembering he said it was untrue: ‘...Jim himself was always rather deprecating about Another Self. It was hardly more than fiction he would say, before agreeing to a reissue. It is true one would need to be strangely literal-minded to suppose that everything in it was bald fact, but to complain that it was unreal would be to miss the comic precision with which it nails the awful predicaments of childhood and youth – predicaments which, in one form or another, most of us have experienced....’
• https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
• “...(his diaries) which have been described as 'one of the treasures of contemporary English literature'. Many have hailed him as the greatest English diarist of the twentieth century, and compared him to Samuel Pepys. As well as providing a wealth of fascinating detail about his work, friendships and attachments, JLM's diaries are remarkable for the sharpness with which he observes the world around him, the candour with which he writes about himself and others, his alternation of tone between the comic and the poignant, and his ability to capture the essence of a scene in a few words.” (https://www.jamesleesmilne.com/books....)
Anyway these are not his diaries...it reads like a memoir. In his diaries whenever he mentioned this book, I seem to recall him saying that it was not an accurate rendition of his life. I enjoyed reading about him interacting with his mother and father. But then when he was shipped off to boarding school the book became less interesting to me. So I’d give the first half of the book 3.5 stars and then the second half of the book at most 2.5 stars. So I’ll give it 3 stars...I don’t think it rises to the occasion of a 4-star book and this is from someone who pretty much has loved his diaries.
Reviews:
• https://foxedquarterly.com/james-lees... (Grant McIntyre said this in his review so I was right about remembering he said it was untrue: ‘...Jim himself was always rather deprecating about Another Self. It was hardly more than fiction he would say, before agreeing to a reissue. It is true one would need to be strangely literal-minded to suppose that everything in it was bald fact, but to complain that it was unreal would be to miss the comic precision with which it nails the awful predicaments of childhood and youth – predicaments which, in one form or another, most of us have experienced....’
• https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
April 5, 2024
As I started reading, I thought “this sounds like Nancy Mitford.” Not long after, the author (as a teen) goes to the Swinbrook Manor of Lord and Lady Redesdale, visiting Tom Mitford (the eldest, and only boy, who was killed in World War Two). And he is the visitor victimized by Lord Redesdale, but more so, as described in Nancy Mitford’s first book, by the six girls, who chant in unison: “We don’t want to lose you, But we think you ought to go.” The tale has a slightly happier ending here than Nancy lets on.
Lees-Milne isn’t as funny as Nancy. He’s not as good a writer as Patrick Leigh Fermor. But this book neatly bisects the two. His parents are as strange, though not quite in same class (in all senses) as the Mitford clan. His father had a Cambridge degree, lived in a hereditary manor with a captive parish, whose rector he battled for 30 years. But the author had no obvious talents—he wound up with an Eton, then Oxford, education, having learned nothing more than an inclination for literature and architecture. After considerable failures to launch, that was enough.
Lees-Milne also wrote three volumes of diaries. This book begins when he’s six (about 1912) and ends in 1943. It’s not as good as Nancy Mitford’s first two books. But it’s infinitely preferable to Nancy Mitford’s third.
Lees-Milne isn’t as funny as Nancy. He’s not as good a writer as Patrick Leigh Fermor. But this book neatly bisects the two. His parents are as strange, though not quite in same class (in all senses) as the Mitford clan. His father had a Cambridge degree, lived in a hereditary manor with a captive parish, whose rector he battled for 30 years. But the author had no obvious talents—he wound up with an Eton, then Oxford, education, having learned nothing more than an inclination for literature and architecture. After considerable failures to launch, that was enough.
Lees-Milne also wrote three volumes of diaries. This book begins when he’s six (about 1912) and ends in 1943. It’s not as good as Nancy Mitford’s first two books. But it’s infinitely preferable to Nancy Mitford’s third.
May 31, 2025
I might give this one a 3.5 if I could. The first two chapters or so are possibly the funniest things I’ve ever read. Oof the book stopped with the fish incident, it would easily be a 5 star short story. During the rest of the book, it was hard for me to separate the quality of the writing from the man himself. He described an apparently non-consensual sexual encounter - he was the aggressor and he never expressed awareness of the potential that it could be rape. In addition to the class issues others have mentioned, he also said something about how WWII should have ended in 1941 because Naziism had been effectively quashed by then. Tell that to all the people who died in concentration camps after that.
In fiction, we could give 5 stars to well written novels about unpleasant people. It’s harder to do with memoirs, however, regardless of how much is true and how exaggerated.
In fiction, we could give 5 stars to well written novels about unpleasant people. It’s harder to do with memoirs, however, regardless of how much is true and how exaggerated.
April 12, 2024
It was a funny little memoir until the point where it was suggested he sexually assaulted his cousin, and this was told as a quirky little anecdote and not a sign of derangement. He locked her in her bedroom, took his clothes off and threatened to kill her. It was quite hard to enjoy after that, funnily enough.
April 7, 2025
Good book. Enjoyable and entertaining. Lees Milne is a talented writer. His writing is sophisticated, yet it flows easily. Set primarily in England in the 1st half of the 20th century amongst privileged people he brings the people and the era to life.
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