Paul Johnson
It is not quite impossible to produce a dull book on Jane Austen — it has actually been done by that gruesome old battle-axe Marylyn Butler — but it is hard to produce two entertaining books on Saint Jane. That has now been done too, by Irene Collins, who follows up her Jane Austen and the Clergy with a delightful new volume, Jane Austen: the Parson's Daughter (Hambledon Press, £25). Strongly recommended Christ- mas reading for all Janeites. For more robust and gamy tastes there is Graham Robb's Victor Hugo (Picador, £20) which actually came out last year but which I have Only just read and hugely enjoyed. Robb writes better on French 19th-century litera- ture than anyone else — his Balzac (1994) is another winner.
The most disgusting book of the year was undoubtedly Woodrow Wyatt's diaries (Macmillan, £25) because he not only lies himself but puts lies into the mouths of innocent people like my dear friend Sonia Sinclair. It is repellent, too, that Macmillan should have published a book which con- tains a shocking falsehood about their for- mer chairman, Harold Macmillan. Wyatt quotes a letter from the aged Haldane (a dubious source even before his dotage) say- ing that Macmillan was sacked from Eton for sodomy and never went near the place again. Macmillan was not expelled, was not a, sodomite and visited his old school regu- ially. Wyatt showed this nasty letter to Alistair Horne, Macmillan's official biogra- pher, who told him it was nonsense. But what can you do with people who are determined to lie for money from the safety of the tomb? Beaverbrook wrote of Haig that, with the publication of his diaries, 'he committed suicide 25 years after his death'. Wyatt did the same — in six months.
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