The Unexpurgated Beaton: The Cecil Beaton Diaries As He Wrote Them, 1970-1980 - Hardcover

Beaton, Cecil

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1400041120 ISBN 13: 9781400041121

Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc, 2003

Synopsis

Cecil Beaton was one of the great twentieth-century tastemakers. A photographer, artist, writer and designer for more than fifty years, he was at the center of the worlds of fashion, society, theater and film. The Unexpurgated Beaton brings together for the first time the never-before-published diaries from 1970 to 1980 and, unlike the six slim volumes of diaries published during his lifetime, these have been left uniquely unedited.

Hugo Vickers, the executor of Beaton's estate and the author of his acclaimed biography, has added extensive and fascinating notes that are as lively as the diary entries themselves. As one London reviewer wrote, "Vickers' waspish footnotes are the salt on the side of the dish." Beaton treated his other published diaries like his photographs, endlessly retouching them, but, for this volume, Vickers went back to the original manuscripts to find the unedited diaries.

Here is the photographer for British and American Vogue, designer of the sets and costumes for the play and film My Fair Lady and the film Gigi, with a cast of characters from many worlds: Bianca Jagger, Greta Garbo, David Hockney, Truman Capote, the Queen Mother and Princess Margaret, Mae West, Elizabeth Taylor, Marlene Dietrich, Rose Kennedy and assorted Rothschilds, Phippses and Wrightsmans; in New York, San Francisco, Palm Beach, Rio and Greece, on the Amalfi coast; at shooting parties in the English countryside, on yachts, at garden parties at Buckingham Palace, at costume balls in Venice, Paris or London.

Beaton had started as an outsider and "developed the power to observe, first with his nose pressed up against the glass," and then later from within inner circles. Vickers has said, "his eagle eye missed nothing," and his diaries are intuitive, malicious (he took a "relish in hating certain figures"), praising and awestruck. Truman Capote once said "the camera will never be invented that could capture or encompass all that he actually sees."

The Unexpurgated Beaton is a book that is not only a great read and wicked fun but a timeless chronicle of our age.

About this title

Product Description:

The Unexpurgated Beaton Sometimes awestruck, sometimes wicked, always juicy, these diaries--like those of Horace Walpole or Andy Warhol--are a brilliant record of their times, acutely observed, stylishly written, and a pleasure to read. 40 photos.

Review:

Susan has secured a fantastic serial deal with the Sunday Times, so there was a strict embargo until Monday 23rd September. Because of this I've given the book a press date of 10th October. The serial has now run, and was great. The Daily Mail followed this up with a big feature on 23rd September and Vanity Fair are running an extract on their November issue. Hugo was interviewed on the Today programme (BBC Radio 4) on 25th September.Other interviews confirmed include BBC Radio Ulster, BBC Radio Leicester, BBC Radio Leeds, Brian Morton Show (BBC Radio Scotland) and Robert Elms Show (BBC London). Hugo will also be recording the BBC Radio 4 words quiz with Frank Delaney on 16th October. Hugo has also signed stock at Hatchards, Waterstones Piccadilly and Books Etc., Oxford Street. Hugo Vickers has also done a number of talks - the Cheltenham Festival (16 October), the Guildhall in Windsor (24 Sept.), and Methvensin Windsor (28th Jan. '03). He also took part in an English Speaking Union Literary Lunch at Chartwell, Kent on 26 October. There is interest from Conde Nast for one for their Ralph Lauren evenings and from the V&A. He will bespeaking at in the State Apartments at St. James's Palace on 4th February 2003, in aid of Sargent Cancer Care for Children. Hugo has written an 800 word piece on the Beaton diaries which will appear in the Savoy Style magazine when it comes out at the end of September. Reviews received include: Daily Mail (Duchess of Devonshire), The Week, Evening Standard (Beaton was mentioned in a piece on diaries by Sarah Dunant), Sunday Times (Humphrey Carpenter), Country Life (Roy Strong), Gay Times, TLS (Peter Parker), Evening Standard (Alexander Walker), Daily Telegraph, What's On In London, Inside E (Canada) Expectedreviews: Mail on Sunday, The first review has come in...'...thanks to biographer Hugo Vickers, you can now revel in his acerbic take on twentieth centuryhigh society.'Marie Claire 'I found myself totally gripped by the whole book. Beaton's life had its share of glamour and grime, and from the age of seventy-five, disabled and frail, he was back at work in Paris photographing a special issue of French Vogue. 'I must keep cool and not cool off,' he writes, and it seems that, despite everything, he never did.'Patrick O'Connor, Literary Review 'This new volume contains selections from the unpublished diaries ofonly the last decade of Beaton's life and includes all the bitchiness he edited out of the extracts he published when he was alive.'Alexander Chancellor,Sunday Telegraph 'Like all great diarists Beaton has the essential qualitiesof candour and unflinching honesty...The later, not entirely literate diaries make for painful, almost unbearably moving reading. Yet Vickers was right to publish them for the first time as they show a surprising sweetness of character which finally emerged from underneath the notoriously brittle shell.'Hugh Massingberd, Spectator '...the diaries...provide a unique and revealing perspective...A joy of this book is the editor's linking passages, which offer a running commentary, gently steering the reader through the exalted pages ofthe Almanac de Gotha and the gossip columns of Eurotrash alike. They exhibita waspishness of their own - which makes one wonder what revelations Hugo Vickers's diaries might have in store.'Philip Hoare, The Independent

About this edition

• Publisher: Alfred a Knopf Inc
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1400041120
• ISBN 13: 9781400041121
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 528