The Ultimate Social Climber

The publication of a new edition of the Channon diaries has attracted considerable attention, with extensive reviews in national newspapers and weekly journals. The reasons are evident. The first edition in 1967, edited by Robert Rhodes James, was a publishing sensation, immediately acclaimed for its revelations about high society, royalty, and parliamentary politics from the mid-1930s to the mid-1950s. The sharp observations and lush gossip about a wide cast of both famous and previously obscure but evidently interesting people made the diaries attractive for all readers; acute commentaries and inside information provided vivid new evidence for the biographers of many