The Benson Diary, by A. C. Benson, Eamon Duffy and Ronald Hyam (forthcoming)



The Benson Diary, by A. C. Benson, Eamon Duffy and Ronald Hyam (forthcoming)
Publication date: June 2025
Hardback in two volumes – 246 × 156 mm – 474 pages + 576 pages
Volume I: 1885–1906
Volume II: 1907–1925
Sixty illustrations in colour
ISBN 9781843682677
A. C. Benson (1862-1925), novelist, poet (he wrote 'Land of Hope and Glory'), educationalist and Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge, kept a voluminous diary for most of his life. Considered too controversial at the time, it was sealed up after his death. Only now, with the publication of this extensive selection, can his witty and acute judgements on people, institutions and issues – including Henry James, Thomas Hardy, Queen Victoria, Dean Inge, Balfour, Asquith, Eton and Cambridge – be fully appreciated. Benson paints an endlessly fascinating and often very funny picture of a public life at the heart of the Edwardian literary, educational, church and political establishments; but also of a private life riven by the pressures of unconsummated romantic attachments to young men, and by attacks of appalling depression, an illness then barely understood.
This edition has been prepared by the historians Eamon Duffy and Ronald Hyam and has a substantial introduction, extensive footnotes, a chronology, an index and 48 pages of photographs. It is presented as two elegant hardbacks.