The Wandering Years: 1922-39 (Cecil Beaton's Diaries Book 1)

A classic six-volume memoir of the twentieth century, spanning through the Second World War, the Golden Age of Hollywood and the reign of Queen Elizabeth II.

Sir Cecil Beaton (1904 –1980) was an English fashion, portrait and war photographer, painter, diarist and Academy Award–winning stage and costume designer.

For almost as long as he could write, Cecil Beaton kept his diaries. They accumulated year after year, and from a formidable pile of notebooks he extracted enough to fill six volumes.

This first volume covers seventeen years from 1922 to 1939 and is a fascinating and disarming book.

He describes his friendships with famous men and women, artists, writers, actors, film stars and celebrated socialites.

Few franker autobiographical documents have seen the light of day.

'Wise, witty and perceptive' – New York Herald Tribune

‘Fascinating and well-written , and deserves to be read as an insight into a period and of someone who was very much part of it’ – Western Mail

‘ The Wandering Years is certainly Mr Beaton’s best book … The diaries belong to the classical case-histories of youthful struggles, of the instinct which guides the misfit to salvation’ – Sunday Times

‘It is an enormously illuminating book, about a multi-talented man with an apparently limitless reserve of energy’ – Tatler

‘Moment after moment in The Wandering Years springs to life with remarkable colours and clarity and it is continually apparent that Mr Beaton’s talent for what he modestly calls his “snap-shots” extends equally well to his pen as to his camera’ – Time and Tide

‘An elegant and witty recreator of the period scene’ – Vogue

‘He has a warm appreciation of beauty, a sense of elegance and display, a gentle wit , a thorough understanding of his craft’ – Observer

‘One of the unassailables of our time’ – Daily Mail

CECIL BEATON’S DIARIES SERIES:
BOOK 1: THE WANDERING YEARS: 1922-39
BOOK 2: THE YEARS BETWEEN: 1939-44
BOOK 3: THE HAPPY YEARS: 1944-8
BOOK 4: THE STRENUOUS YEARS: 1948-55
BOOK 5: THE RESTLESS YEARS: 1955-63
BOOK 6: THE PARTING YEARS: 1963-74