{"product_id":"my-dear-hugh-book-tim-heald-9780711232402","title":"My Dear Hugh","description":"Richard Cobb was one of the most distinguished British historians of the twentieth century. A professor at Oxford, a multiple prize-winner, author of numerous books and innumerable essays and reviews, on subjects that ranged from the French revolution to pre-war Tunbridge Wells, he was proudest of all to be described as a Parisian. He was unconventional, anarchic and almost impossibly erudite.    Somehow he managed in the course of a life of apparently unremitting grandeur to write letters to his friends, colleagues and increasing to Hugh Trevor-Roper, his equally brilliant and eccentric contemporary, and himself a notable correspondent. They were scratchy, iconoclastic, funny, indiscreet, vivid, fluent, and occasionally brilliant set-pieces of descriptive or historical reporting. The sight of one of his ill-typed missives in a blue Basildon Bond envelope was always a promise of pleasure, and usually of instruction, frequently an invitation to a feast of scurrilous gossip, and an excuse to put off day-to-day concerns for a while. He wrote about politicians, the royal family, fellow academics and journalists, and, of course, mutual friends.   The complete letters would fill many volumes, but here is a selection of the best, made by Tim Heald, who was taught by Cobb at university, and corresponded with him intermittently for the next thirty years.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49545516089617,"sku":"GOR004131271","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true},{"title":"GB \/ GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":49555412615441,"sku":"GOR003548054","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ WELL_READ \/ SBYB","offer_id":50356621639953,"sku":"CIN0711232407A","price":6.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50356629635345,"sku":"CIN0711232407G","price":6.56,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/0711232407.jpg?v=1764239425","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/my-dear-hugh-book-tim-heald-9780711232402","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}