NANCY ASTOR: A LIFE.

UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn.FINE/FINE.Owner's inked name to front pastedown but no price-clip to dw/dj.Bright,crisp,clean,glossy laminated,colour illustrated biographical artwork by Charles Sims,to front panel with white lettering and subject's contemporary b/w portrait photographic rear panel; with negligible shelf-wear or creasing to edges and corners - no major nicks or tears present.Top+fore-edges bright and clean; contents bright,tight,clean,solid and sound - pristine - no dog-ear reading creases to any pages' corners,appears unread - apart from my own collation.Bright,crisp,clean,sharp-cornered, publisher's original plain dark green paper-covered boards with bright,crisp,blocked gilt letters to spine/ backstrip and clean plain white endpapers - inscrptn excepted.UK,8vo HB+dw/dj,1st edn,1-237pp [paginated] includes prologue,11 chapters and an postscript,8pp contemporary autobiographical b/w photographs in 1 block,between pp114/15,and 7 b/w cartoons interspersed elsewhere in the text,a select bibliography,and an index.Plus [unpaginated] half-title+title pages,a dedication,separate contents and illustrations lists/tables,and acknowledgements.
Nancy Astor was the first elected woman (to take her seat!) in the British parliament and one of the most distinguished political hostesses of her time.Bernard Shaw,Winston Churchill and T.E. Lawrence are just a few of the glittering company who came to dine with her at Cliveden. Nancy was born in Virginia and settled in England with her second husband,the millionaire Waldorf Astor.She became known for her acidic wit,honesty and interest in women's rights.She was a passionate Christian Scientist and a fervent prohibitionist,though she did not adhere rigidly to the ideals of either cause. In this biography Anthony Masters examines her origins,her political career and the relationships which influenced her.With Philip Lothian, Billy and Julian Grenfell and T.E. Lawrence she had intense platonic love affairs.But she also made her husband Waldorf very happy for much of his life and was greatly loved by her children.Of her disastrous first marriage there was only one sad reminder - her son Bobbie,who drank heavily and seemed bent on a course of self-destruction.As a politician Nancy was erratic and unpredictable: caprice and ineffective idealism destroyed her potential so that the unusual qualities which many people detected in her came to nothing.She became very unpopular over the stand which she and her group,the 'Cliveden Set',took on appeasement for she was known to have entertained at least one high-ranking member of the Nazi Party.Energetic and yet often misguided,loyal and yet occasionally possessive to an alarming degree,Nancy was a woman of many contradictions.This is a sensitive new study of an exceptional woman. Please contact seller,for correct shipping/P+p quotes - particularly ALL overseas customers - BEFORE ordering through the order page!
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