The Pity of War

Miranda Seymour is a biographer, novelist, and reviewer. She is a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and recipient of the Pen Ackerley Memoir of the Year Prize for Thrumpton Hall, her extraordinary account of life at the family manor, which she now runs as a successful conference and wedding business. Her other acclaimed biographies include lives of Mary Shelley, Henry James, Robert Graves, Ottoline Morrell, and Helle Nice, the Bugatti Queen.Her interest in the history of the relationship between England and Germany was triggered by her own background. In 1931, her English uncle was (inadvertently) almost responsible for Hitler's death. His marriage to a German woman led Miranda on a quest for her family's German links, which had been neglected and forgotten following World War II.

Miranda Seymour tells the remarkable story of England's centuries of profound connection and rivalry with Germany. Her vibrant and heart-breaking history--told through the lives of princes and painters, soldiers and sailors, bakers and bankers, charlatans and saints--reminds us, poignantly, of the powerful bonds many have chosen to forget.

PART ONE FROM A PROTESTANT ALLIANCE TO THE ENDING OF AN EMPIRE (1613-1919) 1 Noble Endeavours 2 Exiles and Travellers (1613-1782) 3 Romantic Exchanges (1790-1830) 4 Count Smorltork's Progress (1826-32) 5 The Age of Virtue (1830-60) 6 Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale and Charles de Bunsen's German Hospital (1840-52) 7 Germanising England: The Albert Effect (1840-61) 8 Travels in a Foreign Land (1840-60) 9 The Eagle and the Lion (1858-88) 10 Lululaund and Other Adventures (1880-1910) 11 The Age of Apprehension (1888-1901) 12 The Friendship Under Strain (1902-10) 13 The Rift Widens (1906-14) 14 Debacle (1913-14) 15 Victims of Circumstance: England in Germany (1914-18) 16 Victims of Circumstance: Germany in England (1914-18) 17 Pay-Back (1918-19) PART TWO FROM VERSAILLES TO THE VERGE OF WAR (1919-40) 18 Love Among the Ruins (1919-23) 19 Reconnecting (1924-30) 20 Falling in Love Again: Tom Mitford (1909-45) 21 Entering the Abyss (1928-34) 22 Nikolaus Pevsner: The Odd One Out (1929-33) 23 The Young Ambassadors (1930-39) 24 And Then, There Was Romance (1930-39) PART THREE MOVING BEYOND REPAIR 25 Exodus (1933-8) 26 Noble Endeavours (1933-40) 27 Resisters and Informers (1933-40) 28 Fate and Circumstance (1939-45) 29 Only Connect Afterword