Book description
Charles Greville (1794-1865) made his first occasional diary entries
in 1814, but the diary only became a regular habit in the mid-1820s,
continuing with occasional breaks, about which he is self-reproachful,
through the reigns of George IV, William IV and Victoria. Finally, in
1860, after shaking his head over the worrying triumphs of Garibaldi,
he closed it, once and for all. The grandson of a duke, Greville
looked with a level and scornful eye upon royalty. George was 'the
most worthless dog that ever lived'; William 'the silliest old
gentleman in his own dominions, but what can be expected of a man with
a head like a pineapple?' The diaries roused Queen Victoria - 'an odd
woman' - from the lethargy of her widowhood. She spoke of Greville's
'indiscretion, indelicacy, ingratitude toward friends, betrayal of
confidence and shameful disloyalty'.
Greville's circle included Talleyrand, Wellington, Macaulay, Sydney
Smith, Princess Lieven, Lord Grey, Melbourne, Guizot and Disraeli, as
well as 'jockeys, bookmakers and blackguards'.As Clerk of the Privy
Council, Greville works for a compromise on the Reform Bill. He
witnesses Covent Garden theatre burning down. His closest friend, Lord
De Ros, is caught cardsharping. Visiting Balmoral, he finds Albert and
Victoria living 'not merely like small gentlefolks, but like very
small gentlefolks'. When cholera comes, he writes laconically of 'Mrs
Smith, young and beautiful, taken ill while dressing for Church and
dead by nightfall.' Not a chatterbox, Charles Greville brilliantly
assembles everyone else's chatter. This is the intelligent voice of
another age, an uneasy aristocrat catching history on the turn and
looking dubiously at the future.
Edward Pearce, after a national newspaper career starting in 1977,
still keeps his hand in with books reviews, obituaries and travel
pieces. However, for several years now he has concentrated on writing
history.
The Lost Leaders
(about three near-Prime Ministers) was followed by
Lines of Most Resistance
(about English Resistance to Irish Home Rule),
Denis Healey
(the authorised biography), and
Reform
! (about the 1832 Act).The idea of preparing a handy, abridged Greville
came to him when using Volume II as an outstanding source for that book.
He is currently working on a life of Robert Walpole.
