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Books

The world of Thessyros: an icky erotic fantasy

Chris Fletcher wonders whether the couple who took over Kelmscott Manor during the 1940s noticed there was a war going on at all: they were too blitzed on sex, booze and Benzedrine to care

2 May 2015

9:00 AM

2 May 2015

9:00 AM

The Starlight Years: Love and War at Kelmscott Manor, 1940-1948 Joscelyn Godwin

The Dovecote Press, pp.194, £15, ISBN: 9780992915117

Lore has it that those viewing naughty books in the British Museum could once do so only with the Archbishop of Canterbury in attendance. Such pastoral care may be advisable for any institution ending up with the private archive of letters, diaries and artwork from which Joscelyn Godwin compiles this eccentric and nicely produced account of his parents’ lives from 1940 to 1948.

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Available from the Spectator Bookshop, £14 Tel: 08430 600033. Christopher Fletcher is keeper of the special collections at the Bodleian Library, Oxford.

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