James Lees-Milne
1985 has been a very rich year in the sort of books that appeal to me.
Robert Gittings's and Jo Manton's Dorothy Wordsworth is a masterpiece of reconstruction of the uneventful yet fasci- nating inner life of an acute observer of nature. If ever a woman hid her candle under a bushel it was Dorothy. She sub- ordinated her entire life and writings to the advancement of her illustrious brother William, of whose poetry she was often the inspirer. She worked like an unpaid slave for his household and was a nanny to his children. A love-starved, noble, tragic figure whose immense literary gifts were never allowed free scope.
Hannah Pakula's Queen Marie of Roumania delighted me. Here was another woman, in very different circumstances, whose noble intentions met with every kind of prejudice and rebuff. Born a Princess of Great Britain, she was married to a dolt of a husband and became the mother of a pig of a son. Intelligent, beautiful, romantic, and just a trifle absurd, she devoted her life to a twopenny- halfpenny kingdom. Her subjects worship- ped her.
The Crawford Papers, ably edited by John Vincent, comprise the candid diaries of the 27th Earl of Crawford, politician and art connoisseur who mixed with the great and was not a likeable man. An invaluable source book for students of late 19th- and early 20th-century social history.
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