Olaf Stapledon, First and Last
For Olaf Stapledon and Agnes Miller, the sudden-seeming end to the war meant a collapse of the forces which had conspired to keep them half a world apart: now, after waiting for so many long months and...
View ArticleThe Great Calm
At 5 A.M., the representatives of Germany signed the Armistice that had been under negotiation for four days. At 11:00, it took effect, and the war ended, almost exactly a week after Wilfred Owen was...
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Vivian de Sola Pinto is Overtaken by the Old World; One More Letter from Kate...
We’ll open today, a century back, with our farthest-forward writer. But even the eager Vivian de Sola Pinto is no longer out in front of the entire B.E.F. It’s all coming together, now, as the...
View ArticleRichard Aldington’s Life is Ruined; Olaf Stapledon’s Future Gets a Decorative...
As the end draws near, we have three veterans in three very different situations today, a century back. One stands at the beginning of the end, another at the cusp of the beginning, and the third in...
View ArticleEdward Heron-Allen Considers His Privilege, Wilfred Owen on the Ongoing...
Oh, it’s one of those days, today: five different entries–and two numbered lists! But it’s not all bad… First, a grateful return. Edward Heron-Allen‘s whirlwind tour of liberated France and Belgium has...
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Rowland Feilding Marches Triumphant; Herbert Read and the Modern Future; Duff...
We’re all over the place, today, but since Rowland Feilding had to face my ire at the stupidity of punitive warfare alone, yesterday, I’ll start by letting him tell us an altogether nicer story of the...
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Edward Heron-Allen Flattened by Ypres; The Worries and Losses of Diana...
The Cloth Hall, Ypres, probably 1918 Edward Heron-Allen had a very full day, today, a century back. He and the journalists he is accompanying (and debunking) drove through no fewer than thirteen towns,...
View ArticleDuff Cooper Takes a Long, Low View; Christmas Wishes from Salter Clark;...
Ladies and Gentleman, Duff Cooper has left Paris. For better or worse, he also left no record of his escapades during the last few days… B.E.F., October 18 Amiens is rather depressing after Paris. The...
View ArticleAlfred Hale’s Waterloo; Olaf Stapledon Back to the Painful Grind; Rowland...
Today, a century back, Alfred Hale breakfasted at the Union Jack Club and then met a lady friend at Waterloo Station. Loaded up with my haversack, water bottle and gas mask slung over my shoulders,...
View ArticleDiana Manners Has One More Quiet Night; Wilfred Owen Embittered; Rowland...
Diana Manners doesn’t trust the rumors of the war’s imminent demise, nor is she confident that her Duff, whose leave will shortly expire, will remain safe. Arlington Street October 15 This is my last...
View ArticleRobert Graves Writes of Loss to Siegfried Sassoon; Wilfred Owen Writes of...
Robbie Ross connected so many people that his death–strangely, perhaps, given that he was not a young man or a soldier–seems to be the center of collective sorrow in the war’s last Autumn. But like...
View ArticleDuff Cooper Finds Diana in Paris… A Diana, Anyway, While His Own Diana Lives...
Perhaps there was too much going on yesterday? Well, today we have two letters–three, actually, though from just two relationships–which could stand for much of what has been going on lately (or, for...
View ArticleCarroll Carstairs is Alive to Love; Duff Cooper is a Satisfied Customer;...
Duff Cooper‘s memoir will start us off on his Paris adventure all nice and clean. It was a great joy to get up this morning in Paris. A hot bath of water clearer than we have been accustomed to drink,...
View ArticleAll Things Do Cry: Duff Cooper Plays at the War’s Ending; C.E. Montague...
I’ve written before of my faint sense of embarrassment at finding the affair of Duff Cooper and Diana Manners to be so intriguing. Enough with this proto-celebrity-culture focus on the posh! But they...
View ArticleDuff Cooper, Distinguished; C.E. Montague on the Revival of Amiens; Wilfred...
The war is winding down–which is both a retrospective shaping of experience into history (a no-no, if we are to understand the experience) and getting to be a pretty obvious likelihood, a century back....
View ArticleDiana Manners Plans for the Future; Wilfred Owen Returns to the Very Front,...
Diana Manners is ahead of the times in two ways, today, a century back: September 30 I have got a great new money scheme. It dawned on me alone… Capital must be scraped and planked on to the aviation...
View ArticleDuff Cooper’s Indifferent Courage; A New Experience for Salter Clark; Ancient...
Today, a century back, Diana Manners’ superstitions about the perils of even mentioning danger are overcome by her desire to pass on a clever line. Arlington Street September 28 Ivo, who I dined with...
View ArticleDiana Manners Thinks All is Well, and Duff Cooper is, as it Happens; C.E....
Duff Cooper and Diana Manners are separated only by a few hundred miles and the usual yawning experiential gap: she writes from the lap of luxury, and he from the edge of battle–and only two or three...
View ArticleDuff Cooper Sneaks a Nap on the Eve of Battle; Olaf Stapledon Wonders at the...
Duff Cooper stands to today, a century back, and stands on the eve of battle. September 26th. Stood to 5:30-6:30. On duty 7 to 10.30–a fine sunny morning. Came back and was resting, when I was called...
View ArticleDuff Cooper and Diana Manners Fire Back and Forth on Love and Courage and...
Today, a century back, we can follow the passionate affair of Duff Cooper and Diana Manners in several installments as they write, simultaneously, across the experiential gulf and its postal time lag....
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