There’s something reassuring about 98-year-old Diana Athill. She’s stately and well-ordered, like the gardens at Ditchingham Hall in Norfolk, her grandparents’ Georgian house where she spent long periods of her childhood. Yes, she really is of that class, though she doesn’t trumpet it (she was presented at court in the brief reign of King Edward VIII) and, as is well known, she is of more than a certain age — born in 1917, towards the end of the first world war but, in social terms, a throwback to the Edwardian era, and half a decade before the publication of Ulysses...
Already a subscriber? Log in
Easter flash sale:
10 issues for $1
Subscribe this Easter and get the next 10 issues of the magazine, plus website and app access, all for just $1.
- Weekly delivery of the magazine
- Unlimited access to spectator.com.au and app
- Spectator Australia podcasts and newsletters
- Full access to spectator.co.uk
Unlock 3 articles a month
Available from the Spectator Bookshop, £10.99 Tel: 08430 600033. Andrew Lycett has written biographies of Arthur Conan Doyle, Ian Fleming, Wilkie Collins and Rudyard Kipling.
You might disagree with half of it, but you’ll enjoy reading all of it. Try your first month for free, then just $2 a week for the remainder of your first year.
Comments
Easter flash sale: 10 issues for $1
Join the conversation with other Spectator Australia readers. Subscribe to leave a comment.
CLAIM OFFER 10 issues for $1Already a subscriber? Log in