A Personal History by A.J.P. Taylor

 Although I used to like reading Taylor’s history books, I found his autobiography fairly dull, except for the historical context, and some of the stories about his friends and his wives. I’d like to know more about Lewis Namier, for example, who was his colleague and friend for a long time. He and his Russian wife are extremely intriguing characters. It was also interesting that he didn’t have a high regard for C.S. Lewis. I wonder if this was partly because he was somewhat biased against Christianity. He also worked for

Beaverbrook for a time, and this was quite fascinating.

Taylor chose to marry a woman who seemed somewhat like his mother to me. His mother had an obsession with a Communist called Henry Sara, although they probably didn’t have an affair, but she obviously preferred him to Taylor’s father! Taylor’s wife Margaret also had obsessions with other men. The first one was the BBC presenter Robert Kee, who went to great lengths to get away from her! She’d probably be charged with stalking these days! The second one was Dylan Thomas, who exploited this fascination with him for material gain and was really a pretty nasty man, according to Taylor. Poor A.J.P. felt humiliated by all this, although he was pleased to have his children, and he got on well with them. I was pleased that his much younger third wife, Eva Haraszti-Taylor, sounded lovely, and well-suited to him.

Troublemaker by Kathleen Burk, a biography of Taylor, could be more interesting, I think.

This was actually my late husband’s book. He liked A.J.P. Taylor’s historical writing as well. We had it for years so I am going to include it in the Rose City Reader TBR 26 in ‘26