A SPECTATOR'S NOTEBOOK
MR. HAROLD NICOLSON's Life of King George V is in the Press and will presum- ably be published in the autumn. It is almost time to wonder who will be entrusted with the Life of King George VI. If the George V has anything of the quality which it is safe to assume it has, nothing better could be suggested than that Mr. Nicolson should be asked to undertake this too; he must have covered most of the ground already. But Mr. Nicolson, I have little doubt, feels the need for some rest from his labours. Sir Llewellyn Woodward might be a Possi- / bility. Whoever it may be. the biography of George VI is hardly likely to be on the scale of those of his two predecessors. Sir Sidney Lee's two-volume Edward VII is a massive affair, but he had a long life to cover. Mr. Nicolson's volume on the political history' of George V was preceded by a personal memoir by John Gore. A single well-proportioned volume would seem to be the right thing for King George VI. In case it be suggested that discussion of the subject is premature I may mention that George V died in 1936 and Mr. Gore's book appeared in 1941, he must have been working on it for some considerable time before that.
Previous page
