Priscilla (57 page)

For permission to quote from Graham Greene's letter to Dermot Mills (© 2013, Verdant SA), I would like to thank the estate of Graham Greene and David Higham Associates. For permission to quote from Greene's
The Quiet American
(© 1955), I would like to thank Random House.

For permission to quote from Geoffrey Wansell's letter to Priscilla, I would like to thank the estate of Geoffrey Wansell and the Sayle Literary Agency.

For permission to quote from Jean D'Ormesson's
At God's Pleasure
(© 1977), tr. Barbara Bray, I would like to thank the author and Harvill Secker, Random House.

For permission to quote from Joseph Kessel's
Belle de Jour
(© 2007), tr. Geoffrey Wagner, I would like to thank Gerald Duckworth & Co.

For permission to quote from Rosemary Say's
Rosie's War
(© 2011), I would like to thank Noel Holland and Michael O'Mara Books.

For permission to quote from Antonia Hunt's
Little Resistance
(© 1982), I would like to thank the estate of Antonia Hunt and Leo Cooper/Pen & Sword Books.

For permission to quote from Hanna Diamond's
Women and the Second World War in France, 1939–48: Choices and Constraints
(© 1999), I would like to thank the author and Longman.

For permission to quote from Michael Bar-Zohar's
The Phantom Conspiracy
(© 1981), I would like to thank the author and Orion Publishing Group.

For permission to quote from Antony Beevor's
D-day: The Battle for Normandy
(© 2010), I would like to thank the author and Penguin Books.

For permission to quote from Elisabeth Furse's
Dream Weaver
(© 1993), I would like to thank the estate of Elisabeth Furse and Ann Barr.

For permission to quote from Martha Gellhorn's
The Honeyed Peace
(© 1953), I would like to thank the estate of Martha Gellhorn and Penguin Books.

For permission to quote from P. G. Wodehouse's
Performing flea, a self-portrait in letters
(© 1954), I would like to thank the estate of P. G. Wodehouse. Reproduced by permission of the author c/o Rogers, Coleridge & White Ltd.

For permission to quote from George Orwell's 1945 broadcast ‘In Defense of P. G. Wodehouse', anthologized in
The Orwell Reader
(© 1978), ed. Peter Davison, I would like to thank the estate of George Orwell c/o A. M. Heath and Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.

I would like to express my gratitude to the following: Gillon Aitken, Brian Aldiss, Elisabeth Barillé, Francesca Barrie, Vicky Bassadone, John Bevington, Maurice Bezard, Jennifer Booth, Carmen Callil, Joseph Carer, Zizi Carer, Peter and Louise Cawthra, Jacques and Marie-Ange Chabert, Maria Corelli, Judy Daulton, Eric Daviatte, Brian Donat, Serge Doubrovsky, Richard and Adeline Doynel de la Sausserie, Heinz Fehlauer, Jean-Michel Fouquet, Didier Gamerdinger, Robert Girardi, Michael Goodden, Jacqueline Hodey, Annette Howard, Robert Irving, Phyllis Jeffery, Adrianne Joseph, Michael Kerr, Katherine Lack, Christophe Lafaye, Patrick Langlade, Gisèle Levrat, Christopher
MacLehose, Angela Mclean, Bryan Magee, Tracey and Tim Maitland, Rüdiger von Maltzahn, Jean-Paul Pitou, Priscilla Pessey, Sue Procopio, Timothy Radcliffe OP, Maisie Robson, Claudius Schonenberger, Gitta Sereny, Michael Sheringham, Jon Stallworthy, Priscilla Thiriez-Andre, Susie Thompson, Ariel Tiberghien, Arnaud and Christiane Tiberghien, Didier Tiberghien, Gael Tiberghien, Jean-Loup Tiberghien, Pierre-Yves and Susan Tiberghien, Quentin Tiberghien, Peter Waugh, Michaël Yannaghas, Nancy Yeide, Sofka Zinovieff.

I would like to thank the staff of the Codrington Library and Taylorian Library in Oxford; the Fondation Ledig-Rowohlt and staff of Château de Lavigny in Switzerland, where part of this book was written.

All writers depend on the input of others. I would like to thank Antony Beevor for his generous nit-picking; my editor Liz Foley for her calm guidance; Clare Alexander, Gillian Johnson, Nicholas Robinson and Peter Washington for reading early drafts and for their comments. In particular, I would like to thank John Hatt for his time and patience, and for lessons in punctuation.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Photograph by Gillian Johnson

NICHOLAS SHAKESPEARE
was born in 1957. His novels have been translated into twenty languages. They include
The Vision of Elena Silves
, a winner of the Somerset Maugham Award, and
The Dancer Upstairs
, which was chosen by the American Library Association in 1997 as the year's best novel, and in 2001 was made into a film of the same name by John Malkovich.
Bruce Chatwin
, Shakespeare's biography of the British novelist, was published in 2000 to widespread critical acclaim. Shakespeare is married with two sons and currently lives in Oxford.

Visit
www.AuthorTracker.com
for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins authors.

ALSO BY NICHOLAS SHAKESPEARE

F
ICTION

The Vision of Elena Silves

The High Flyer

The Dancer Upstairs

Snowleg

Secrets of the Sea

Inheritance

N
ONFICTION

Bruce Chatwin

In Tasmania

SOURCES

Abbreviations used in source sections:
PT: Priscilla Thompson papers
SPB: S. P. B. Mais papers, West Sussex Records Office, Chichester
GS: Gillian Sutro papers, Special Collections, Bodleian Library, Oxford
IWM: Imperial War Musem, Lambeth
NA: National Archives, Kew
BBC: BBC Written Archives Centre, Caversham
MPP: Musée de la Préfecture de Police archives, Paris
ANF: Archives Nationale de France, Paris
AM: Archives départementales de la Manche, Saint-Lô
AC: Archives départementales du Calvados, Caen
HGA: Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center, Boston
NARA: National Archives and Records Administration, Washington DC

Literature on the Occupation would fill the two libraries in Oxford where I wrote much of this book, and every day fresh archival material appears online. For help in understanding the background to Priscilla's life in France, I am grateful to a number of writers, whose works are listed below. Like any student of this period, I am indebted to the pioneering scholarship of Robert Paxton, Julian Jackson, Philippe Burrin, Patrick Buisson, Robert Gildea, Antony Beevor, Allan Mitchell, Hanna Diamond, Ian Ousby and Richard Vinen.

PART ONE

Based on conversations with Vicky Bassadone, Peter Cawthra, Maria Corelli, Judy Daulton, Annette Howard, Phyllis Jeffery, Tracey Maitland, John and Lalage Shakespeare, Carleton and Susie Thompson, Vivien Van Dam.

Unpublished sources: MPP; PT; SPB; Vivien Van Dam memoir; ‘Venal Vera', published anonymously (although attributed to Canadian war correspondent Quentin Reynolds).

Newspapers:
Nursing Times
,
Chichester Observer
.

Books:
All the Days of My Life
, by S. P. B. Mais (Hutchinson, 1937);
Buffets and Rewards
, by S. P. B. Mais (Hutchinson, 1952);
The Happiest Days of My Life
, by S. P. B. Mais (Max Parish, 1953).

PART TWO

Based on conversations with Maurice Bezard, Joseph Carer, Zizi Carer, Richard and Adeline Doynel de la Sausserie, Jacqueline Hodey, Robert Irving, Bryan Magee, Jean-Paul Pitou, Sue Procopio, Michel Lepourry, Jon Stallworthy, Shula Troman, Vivien Van Dam, Michaël Yannaghas.

Unpublished sources: PT; GS; SPB; IWM; BBC; NA; IWM; AC; AM; Rossall School archives.

Newspapers:
The Times
,
News of the World
,
Daily Mirror
,
Daily Express
,
Daily Telegraph
,
Bonnier's
,
Vogue
,
London Gazette, L'Ouest Éclair
.

Books and articles:
A French Officer's Diary: 23 August 1939–1 October 1940
, by D. Barlone, tr. L. V. Cass (Cambridge, 1942);
The Private Diaries of Paul Baudouin
, tr. Charles Petrie (Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1948);
BBC Handbook 1941
(BBC, 1941);
Fireworks at Dusk: Paris in the Thirties
, by Olivier Bernier (Little, Brown, 1993);
Strange Defeat
, by Marc Bloch (Oxford, 1949);
Myths of War
, by Marie Bonaparte (Imago, 1947);
Voices from the Dark Years: The Truth about Occupied France, 1940–45
, by Douglas Boyd (Sutton, 2007);
The Thirty-nine Steps
, by John Buchan (Blackwood, 1915);
Living with Defeat: France under the German Occupation, 1940–44
, by Philippe Burrin tr. Janet Lloyd (Arnold, 1996);
The Road to Bordeaux
, by Douglas Cooper & C. Denis Freeman (Cresset, 1942);
Looking for Trouble
, by Virginia Cowles (Hamish Hamilton, 1941);
Généalogie de la Maison Doynel
, by Colonel Doynel de La Sausserie, in ‘Héraldique et généalogie', 1986, pp. 392–401;
Paris Diary 1932–33
, by Edward Gordon Craig, ed. Colin Franklin (Bird & Bull Press, 1982);
An American in Paris
, by Janet Flanner (Simon & Schuster, 1940);
Marching to Captivity: the War Diaries of a French Peasant 1939–45
, by Gustave Folcher, tr. Christopher Hill (Brassey's, 1966);
The Thirties: an Intimate History
, by Juliet Gardiner (Harper Press, 2010);
Memoirs of Montparnasse
, by John Glassco (Oxford, 1970);
Brighton Rock
, by Graham Greene (Heinemann, 1938);
Holy Deadlock
, by A. P. Herbert (Methuen, 1934);
The Ayes Have It; the Story of the Marriage Bill
, by A. P. Herbert (Methuen, 1937);
Front Line
, by Clare Hollingworth (Cape, 1990);
A Strange Eventful History: the Dramatic Lives of Ellen Terry, Henry Irving and their Remarkable Families
, by Michael Holroyd (Chatto & Windus, 2008);
Memories of Occupied France
, by Agnès Humbert, tr. Barbara Mellor (Bloomsbury, 2008);
The Fall of France: 1940
, by Julian Jackson, (Oxford, 2003);
France: the Dark Years 1940–1944
, by Julian Jackson (Oxford, 2001);
Report on France
, by Thomas Kernan (John Lane, 1942);
Belle de Jour
, by Joseph Kessel (Gallimard, 1928; Duckworth, 2007, tr. Geoffrey Wagner);
Scum of the Earth
, by Arthur Koestler (Cape, 1941);
De Gaulle: the Rebel 1890–1944; De Gaulle: the Ruler 1945–70
, by Jean Lacouture, tr. Alan Sheridan (Harvill, 1992);
The Leopard
, by Giuseppe di Lampedusa (Collins, 1960);
If Britain had Fallen
, by Norman Longmate (Greenhill, 2004);
Shadows Lengthen
,
by Clara Longworth de Chambrun (Scribner, 1949);
Loose ends
, by Arnold Lunn (Hutchinson, 1919); by S. P. B. Mais :
A Public School in Wartime
(John Murray 1916);
Interlude
(Chapman & Hall, 1917);
Rebellion
(Richards, 1917);
A Schoolmaster's Diary
(Richards, 1918);
Education of a Philanderer
(Richards, 1919);
An English Course for Everybody
(Richards, 1921);
Oh! To be in England
(Richards, 1922);
Delight in Books
(Wheaton, 1931);
See England first
(Richards, 1932);
This Unknown Island
(Putnam, 1932);
These I Have Loved
(Putnam, 1933);
S.O.S.: Talks on Unemployment
(Putnam, 1933);
A Modern Columbus
(Rich & Cowan, 1934);
Time to Spare: What Unemployment Means
, ed. Felix Greene (Allen & Unwin, 1935);
The Writing of English
(Chapman & Hall, 1935);
England's Character
(Hutchinson, 1936);
The Three-Coloured Pencil
(Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1937);
The English Scene Today
(Rockliff, 1938);
Raven Among the Rooks
(Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1939);
Listen to the Country
(Hutchinson, 1939);
Diary of a Public Schoolmaster
(Lutterworth, 1940);
Diary of a Citizen
(Lutterworth, 1941);
Caper Sauce
(Hutchinson, 1948);
I Return to Switzerland
(Christopher Johnson, 1948);
Wodehouse: a Life
, by Robert McCrum (Viking, 2004);
Hitchcock and the Making of Marnie
, by Tony Lee Moral (Manchester University Press, 2002);
Suite Française
, by Irène Némirovsky, tr. Sandra Smith (Chatto & Windus, 2004);
At God's Pleasure
, by Jean D'Ormesson, tr. Barbara Bray (Harvill, 1978);
Occupation: The Ordeal of France 1940–1944
, by Ian Ousby (John Murray, 1997);
A Pacifist's War: Diaries 1939–45
, by Frances Partridge (Phoenix, 1999);
Occupied Territory
, by Polly Peabody (Cresset, 1941);
Bluebell: the Authorized Biography of Margaret Kelly, Founder of the Legendary Bluebell Girls
, by George Perry (Pavilion, 1986);
The Life of Irène Némirovsky
, by Olivier Philipponnat and Patrick Lienhardt, tr. Euan Cameron (Chatto & Windus, 2010);
Death and Tomorrow
, by Peter de Polnay (Secker & Warburg, 1944);
Pages d'atelier, 1917–1982
, by Francis Ponge (Gallimard, 2005);
An Unrepentant Englishman: The life of S. P. B. Mais, Ambassador of the Countryside
, by Maisie Robson (King's England Press, 2005);
Wodehouse at War
, by Iain Sproat (Ticknor & Fields, 1981);
Histoire généalogique de la maison de Chivré, 1096–1987: Maine, Anjou, Normandie, Drôme, Avignon
, Gérard de Villeneuve avec la collaboration de Paul Doynel
de La Sausserie et de René de Chivré, (Versailles, 1988);
The Loom of Youth
, by Alec Waugh (Richards, 1917);
Resentment
:
Poems
, by Alec Waugh, (Richards, 1918);
The Eye of the Storm
, by Patrick White (Cape, 1973);
Devon Holiday
, by Henry Williamson (Cape, 1935);
At the Blue Moon Again
, by D. B. Wyndham Lewis (Methuen, 1925);
On straw and other conceits
, by D. B. Wyndham Lewis (Methuen, 1927);
The Stuffed Owl: an Anthology of Bad Verse
, selected by D. B. Wyndham Lewis and Charles Lee (Dent, 1930);
Performing Flea, a Self-Portrait in Letters
, by P. G. Wodehouse (Herbert Jenkins, 1953).