num_pages: 290
description: The Perfect Summer chronicles a glorious English summer a century ago when the world was on the cusp of irrevocable change. Through the tight lens of four months, Juliet Nicolson’s rich storytelling gifts rivet us with the sights, colors, and feelings of a bygone era. That summer of 1911 a new king was crowned and the aristocracy was at play, bounding from one house party to the next. But perfection was not for all. Cracks in the social fabric were showing. The country was brought to a standstill by industrial strikes. Temperatures rose steadily to more than 100 degrees; by August deaths from heatstroke were too many for newspapers to report. Drawing on material from intimate and rarely seen sources and narrated through the eyes of a series of exceptional individuals — among them a debutante, a choirboy, a politician, a trade unionist, a butler, and the Queen — The Perfect Summer is a vividly rendered glimpse of the twilight of the Edwardian era.
language: English
title: The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm
titlecomplete: The Perfect Summer: England 1911, Just Before the Storm
characters: Queen Alexandra, Monica Grenfell, Lord Winterton, Leon Bakst, Michel Fokine, D.W. Griffith, Henry Tonks, Lady Cunard, Mary Macarthur, Philip de László, Paul Verdayn, Ben Tillett, Earl Marshal, Lady Diana Manners, Kenneth Calkin, Brian Calkin, Lady Marjorie Manners, Lady Juliet Duff, Lady Ottoline Morrell, Clayton Glyn, King George V, Rosa Lewis, Alfred Leslie Rowse, Eric Horne, Vivat Rex Georgius, Dame Nellie Melba, Julian Grenfell, George Sturt, Gladys Ripon, Dorelia McNeill, Duff Cooper, Alexandre Benois, Ka Cox, Harry Cust, Mr James Garfield Crake, Maurice Baring, Sir Edward Grey, Peter Stolypin, Sergei Diaghilev, Miss Sharpe, John Hope-Johnstone, Henry Moat, Lord Ribblesdale, Earl of Lonsdale, Frederick Edwin Smith, Nevill Forbes, Gustav Hamel, Virginia Stephen, Nellie Green, Prince Eddy, Mary of Teck, Fabian de Castro, Harry Gosling, Theresa Londonderry, Dr Edward Lyttelton, E.F. Benson, Miss Irene Chester, Thomas W. Burgess, Roger Fry, Clemmie Churchill, Osbert Sitwell, Lady Cynthia Asquith, Mrs Hwfa Williams, Philip Burne-Jones, Aunt Augusta
genres: 20th Century, Historical, Biography, World War I, European History, Edwardian, British Literature, Nonfiction, Sociology, History
ratings_count: 1502
publisher: Grove Press