Elspeth Huxley by C S Nicholls

Elspeth Huxley by C S Nicholls

A biography of the writer, broadcaster, conservationist and chronicler of colonial Kenya, whose memoir "The Flame Trees of Thika" (1959) achieved worldwide fame when made into a television drama series in 1981. Colonial Kenya inspired three great writers - Karen Blixen ("Out of Africa"), Beryl Markham ("West with the Night") and Elspeth Huxley. Huxley's writings (30 books in all: novels, biographies, and political accounts) have great political and social range, encompassing (in her Kenyan books) the exploits of the Happy Valley farmers - made famous by James Fox's book "White Mischief", poor white farmers and the lives of Africans alike. After a childhood spent in East Africa and wartime Britain, Elspeth married Gervas, a grandson of Thomas Huxley and cousin to Julian and Aldous Huxley, whom she knew well. She also later got to know Joy Adamson and the Leakeys. She travelled widely with her husband (an executive with the Empire Marketing Board) and wrote while constantly on the move. She worked for the BBC in World War II and became a Kenyan government adviser. In 1938 she bought a farm in Wiltshire, where she died in 1997.The author, Christine Nicholls, has access to all her letters and papers, and is familiar with many of the people and places in the book. Elspeth Huxley was a compelling personality and a brilliant letter-writer, extraordinarily energetic and effective in everything she did.

Christine Nicholls was Co-Editor and then sole Editor of The Dictionary of National Biography for twenty years, until 1995. She raised it from a dry-as-dust publication to a lively work of reference. She has also edited the Hutchinson Encyclopaedia of Biography. She grew up in East Africa and knows many of the people in Elspeth Huxley's circle. She has recently finished writing a History of St Antony's College, Oxford (Macmillan).

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780007162277
ISBN 10	0007162278
Title	Elspeth Huxley
Author	C S Nicholls
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	HarperCollins Publishers
Year published	2003-05-06
Number of pages	512
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.
Note	Unavailable