My history

Description

"Antonia Fraser's memoir of growing up is not only an attempt to recapture the experiences of her Oxford childhood and youth -- in Shakespeare's phrase, to 'call back yesterday, bid time return.' It is also a chronicle of the progress of her love of history since her first discovery of it as a private pleasure when she was a child in the 1930s--her history, as she believed it to be, for the study of history (as her books subsequently attest) has always been an essential part of the enjoyment of life. When Antonia received as a Christmas present a copy of Our Island Story by H.E. Marshall in 1936, it engendered a lifelong interest in history, firing her emotion to write the story that thirty years later became the globally bestselling Mary Queen of Scots. Antonia's mother, born Elizabeth Harman, was the daughter of a Harley Street doctor; her father, Frank Pakenham, was the second son of the Earl of Longford. With the coming of war, Antonia's happy childhood in the Sussex of Puck of Pook's Hill was succeeded by an evacuation to an Elizabethan manor house near Oxford, which had a profound effect on her imagination. A North Oxford upbringing, including life at the Dragon School, followed, and later a Catholic convent which she attended as a Protestant and emerged as a Catholic. In the meantime, holidays included adventures with relations in Anglo-Ireland at Dunsany Castle and Pakenham Hall, before rather less glamorous work experience as 'Miss Tony' in the hat department of a famous London store. After Oxford University came a job in publishing, a fortunate coincidence for one whose sole ambition was to write--and to write history. Her magical memoir, told with inimitable humor and style, is an unforgettable account of the making of a great narrative historian"--

Description

Antonia Fraser's memoir describes growing up in the 1930s and 1940s but its real concern is with her growing love of History. The fascination began as a child - and developed into an enduring passion; as she writes, 'for me, the study of History has always been an essential part of the enjoyment of life'. Born Antonia Pakenham, the eldest of the eight children of the future Lord and Lady Longford (then Pakenham), her childhood was spent in Oxford, where her father was a don at Christ Church. Evacuation at the beginning of the war to a romantic Elizabethan manor house near Oxford was an inspiration for historical imaginings. There were adventures in Anglo-Ireland at Dunsany Castle and Pakenham Hall, each offering her treasured links to the past which became private obsessions. North Oxford wartime life included four years as one of the few girls then admitted to the Dragon School for boys, followed by time at a Catholic convent school after her family's conversion to Catholicism. Her father joined the Labour Government in 1945 as a Minister, which provided an odd background for exploits such as working in a Bond Street hat shop and a season as a self- made debutante. A job in publishing, by a fortunate coincidence, followed Oxford University and the book ends with the dramatic leap forward with the publishing of Mary Queen of Scots which became a worldwide bestseller to general amazement (including the author's). This magical memoir, told with inimitable humour and style, will take many readers back to their own discovery of History. It is an unforgettable account of one person's journey towards becoming a writer - and a historian.

Subjects

Other Editions

• My history: a memoir of growing upWeidenfeld & Nicolson2015-01-01
• My history2015-01-01
• My history2015-01-01