Lantern Slides: The Diaries and Letters of Violet Bonham Carter, 1904-1914

Inside British politics and upper class social life in the decade before the first world war-by the daughter of the Prime Minister and Liberal leader,H H Asquith. Hitherto and revealing unpublished letters and diaries of a Prime Minister's influential daughter.

Bonham Carter (1887-1969) was the eldest daughter of H.H. Asquith, the Liberal leader who became prime minister of England. This is the first of a planned trilogy covering her diaries and letters, edited by her eldest son, a publisher and politician, and Pottle, a research fellow at Wolfson College. The diary begins in 1904, when Violet was 17 years old and visiting Paris. She was presented at court in 1905 and "came of age" in 1908. Entries feature her travels to Italy, Egypt, and America (where she dined with Theodore Roosevelt) and dinner conversations with Winston Churchill; the diary ends the year before her marriage to Maurice Bonham Carter, her father's principal private secretary. Some entries speak in the voice of a debutante evaluating the menu and guests at a dinner party, while in others the voice of a young woman mature beyond her years offers great insight into the world of British politics, with rich details about Edwardian society. Highly recommended for academic history collections.?Lois Cherepon, St. John's Univ., Staten Island, N.Y.
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