Mary Killen
The latest Frances Partridge diaries, Life Regained 1970-72 (Weidenfeld, £18.99), delivered the anticipated goods. Unlike Woodrow Wyatt's, which pander to our baser instincts, hers pander to the loftier, since their motive is truth-seeking. For this reason and because she leaves it so long after the events to publish, her protagonists can hardly mount their high horses. They themselves must have forgotten all but the sketchiest details of 1970-72 and be as fascinated as the rest of us to read the observations of their exquisitely intelligent and well-wishing friend.
Castaways would be foolish not to go for John Gross's New Oxford Book of English Prose (OUP, £25) to supplement the Bible and Shakespeare on their desert island. Each choice is made with such consum- mate skill that it is clearly the essential (in both senses of the word) passage to prove the points of the 600 or so writers in ques- tion. Gross, the most retiring of literary giants, gives joy after joy.
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