1939: The Last Season

by Anne de Courcy

The Season of 1939 brought all those 'in Society' to London. The young debutante daughters of the upper classes were presented to the King and Queen to mark their acceptance into the new adult world of their parents. They sparkled their way through a succession of balls and parties and sporting events. The Season brought together influential people not only from Society but also from Government at the various events of the social calendar. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain chaperoned his debutante niece to weekend house parties; Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary, lunched with the Headmaster of Eton; Cabinet Ministers encountered foreign Ambassadors at balls in the houses of the great hostesses. As the hot summer drew on, the newspapers filled with ever more ominous reports of the relentless progress towards war. There was nothing to do but wait - and dance. The last season of peace was nearly over.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Historical, Audiobook, World War II, British Literature, War

304 pages, Paperback

First published March 13, 1989

About the author

Born in 1927, Anne de Courcy is a well-known writer, journalist and book reviewer. In the 1970s she was Woman’s Editor on the London Evening News until its demise in 1980, when she joined the Evening Standard as a columnist and feature-writer. In 1982 she joined the Daily Mail as a feature writer, with a special interest in historical subjects, leaving in 2003 to concentrate on books, on which she has talked widely both here and in the United States.

A critically-acclaimed and best-selling author, she believes that as well as telling the story of its subject’s life, a biography should depict the social history of the period, since so much of action and behaviour is governed not simply by obvious financial, social and physical conditions but also by underlying, often unspoken, contemporary attitudes, assumptions, standards and moral codes.

Anne is on the committee of the Biographers’ Club; and a past judge of their annual Prize. Her recent biographies, all of which have been serialised, include THE VICEROY’S DAUGHTERS, DIANA MOSLEY and DEBS AT WAR and SNOWDON; THE BIOGRAPHY, written with the agreement and co-operation of the Earl of Snowdon. Based on Anne’s book, a Channel 4 documentary “Snowdon and Margaret: Inside a Royal Marriage”, was broadcast.

Anne was a judge for the recent Biography section of the Costa Award in 2013, and is also one of the judges on the final selection panel judging the best of all the genres.

Reviews

[Jill Meyer · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent look at the "last 'Season', the spring and summer of 1939. There was a strong sense among all layers of society that war with Germany was inevitable. Conflict had been staved off a year earlier with Chamberlain's "Appeasement" at Munich, which basically "gave" Czechoslovakia to Hitler. (As a side note, the "appeasement" did give the British {and French} another year in which to prepare for war.)

De Courcy, an excellent writer, looks at all levels of society, while focusing on the royal family and the upper-classes, who went through the "Season" of horse races, debutante balls, cricket matches, rowing-at-Henley, etc.

At the "Season's" end, September 1st, Hitler's troops invaded Poland at Danzig, bringing on war, which was formally declared on September 3rd. The nation's young men, whose fathers had gaily marched off in 1914 to The War To End All Wars, enlisted in THEIR war with more resignation and trepidation, knowing already the evils of war. And their "at home" families now knew that raids from the skies could bring destruction
that Britain hadn't known in WWI, where France and other continental countries bore the brunt of four years of fighting.

This is a very good book for history buffs.

[Kennedy · Rating 2 out of 5]

I am quitting this book. I've been really bored with it and don't want to spend any more time on it. I am giving it 2 stars because the topic was interesting, but it just dragged on and on. The author uses extensive primary sources and includes dozens of quotations from the debs of the time which was good. However, there were so many of them that they became tedious. As a reader, it really felt as though half of the book were simply transcripts from interviews.

Two things I enjoyed from the debs' reflections:

the term "NSIT" men who were not safe in taxis because they were sexually forward

"It all seemed so long ago, and as though it was some other girl." I have this feeling looking back 15 years ago, while this deb has had decades to remember.

[Jem · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a brilliant insight into exactly how Britain stood while poised on the brink of war. Social and political events are covered in great detail - the last gasp of the decadence of the thirties is neatly meshed with the lead-up to Britain declaring war on Germany. Extracts from personal letters written by Neville Chamberlain to his sister, thoughts of notable politicians and public figures are included, along with detailed descriptions of the final debutante 'season' of balls, courts and parties. A very interesting read

[Tony Siciliano · Rating 4 out of 5]

I was hoping this would be a social history of the pivotal year of 1939 in England. I was hoping it wouldn't be totally consumed by balls and gowns. Fortunately, such was the case. The author presented a fairly comprehensive overview of England during the year, although there is no doubt the upper classes are heavily featured. Overall, the book was informative and entertaining, covering the very serious issue of pending war and the more frivolous topics, such as the Lambeth Walk dance craze. It was a golden age for the wealthy and middle class, living in an uncertain period that increasingly turned to certain war. For most of the 1930s, most of the people and their leaders refused to accept the clear danger of Hitler, hoping that appeasement would certainly prevent another global blood bath. When appeasement proved to be futile, England prepared for war. Thus ended this golden age of conspicuous wealth and privilege, and began the nearly 5-year battle that was World War II. England would emerge a weaker nation, no longer the greatest power on earth.

[Chrisanne · Rating 3 out of 5]

When you can't get good historical fiction you might as well read non-fiction about the periods you wish there was good fiction about.

The beginning was fascinating and it was nice to switch back and forth from "the season" to the events happening in politics and the world. But, about 1/3 from the end, it got a little heavily focused on the "names" and less focused on the debs. Which, honestly, was what I was there for. The king and queen visit the Roosevelts... but what happened to the almost nobodies who wangled an invitation to be presented at court? There was too little information about them. Also what happened to them post war after the world turned upside down? For the answer to that question I guess you turn to "Debs at War." But, unfortunately, it's been so long that I need to reread it.

This seemed to be aimed at a British audience, which is fine. The author was obviously well-versed in the who's who of the time.

If you don't know much about Great Britain in 1939-1940 it would be more interesting, probably. I did like the talk of fashion and the information about coeds was even more so. I wish there had been more about that---but it probably wasn't the book for it.

It's a solid entry and, probably, the entry for its topic.

[Bertie · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed this book! Admittedly, I picked it up thinking it would focus more on the debs and their balls of the season, but I was pleasantly surprised to learn that it was a narrative on the season as a whole.

This book was very well written and full of character that spared it from feeling dry or boring. The range of topics covered was also very illuminating and wide ranging, and I feel like I’ve learnt so much more about this period, which I shall class as a win!

[Jessica · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great introduction to the the aristocracy and government in Britain at the start of WWII. It does jump around in topic a little bit/isn't always chronological, but given that it takes place in a year, it's not the end of the world.

[Bryn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I adored this the first time I read it, but this time around, on the heels of Angela Lambert's 1939, The Last Season Of Peace, this book looked a little thin. Despite describing itself as being about 'The Last Season,' de Courcy is not really interested in debutantes at all; she is writing about high society in London, with lots of focus on royalty and the upper reaches of the aristocracy. This can be interesting, but at times leads to paragraphs which are just long lists of famous (or formerly famous) names that were at some dinner party, with descriptions of what everyone was wearing and what the flowers were. It was all right, and perhaps a place for some background context for someone just starting to read about the period, but for an actual sense of what it might have been like to be a debutante during 1939 (with lots of quotes from primary sources) Lambert's book is the one to read.

Although as I write that, I am reminded of why de Courcy's book is NOT a good place to get background context -- the way she treats money is fairly ahistorical. What I mean by this is that she spends a chunk of the beginning of the book exulting about how 'cheap' it was to live in 1939, quoting a lot of contemporary prices for things as proof, but never once does she compare these prices to incomes, so there is no way to understand, when she says you can have a night on the town for £5, what that actually meant to someone in the period. Certainly to someone in 1989 (when the book was published) this sounds cheap, but it doesn't account for inflation -- a quick Google tells me this is more like £130 in 1989 (£324 today), which doesn't sound like a cheap night out to me! But even ignoring the inflation, quoting prices doesn't tell a reader anything unless the author is telling you how much money people have (and which people have the money) -- a night out at nightclubs wasn't 'cheap' (which implies that it could be had easily by the masses), it was still a luxury, because £5 is a huge chunk of money if you're making the 1939 average annual wage of £143.

I know, that's a lot of numbers, but that is my point; as an author de Courcy needed to have done that work so she could have illustrated her points without having to take a reader through the math of it all, but if she did that she would lose her beautiful pages about how life in 1939 was so much more pleasant because it was so much 'cheaper' and one could buy clothes and flowers and food etc etc for these low low prices -- because it just does not hold up as far as I can tell. And part of how I knew started to suspect that it didn't hold up is that Lambert does the work right in her book, so the money is situated in context, plus the real meaning of costs surfaces in her interviews with primary sources, like when men talk about how much they dreaded being expected to take the debs out to nightclubs after dances due to the high cost of that kind of evening.

I am glad I reread this, but I don't think I need to read it again.

[Cera · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book provides a really fascinating look at the life of the upper class in Britain during 1939, as tensions build towards the outbreak of WW2 in Europe. de Courcy does a great job of interweaving three big threads; a general social history of Britain during the time period, the society Season in all of its glittering, over-the-top luxury, and the political situation in Europe through the eyes of Chamberlain and other government officials trying to prepare for war while fearing that they were ruining the chances of peace.

I have two connected qualms with the book: first, some of her generalisations about women's lives at the time (presented in an early chapter) seem awfully simplistic, and second, she doesn't cite her sources, so I can't go to them & come to my own conclusions about her statements. (There is a 'Selected Bibliography', but nothing tying the text to the sources except for irregular references when she's directly quoting.) So, were upper class women in Britain really as sexually innocent as de Courcy claims, or is she drawing off of individual testimony ("Oh yes, none of us knew anything about sex") and believing that it's really representative? There's no way to make those judgements from the book itself, which really, really bugs me.

Writing that, I remember something else I notice which worked for me but probably wouldn't for a lot of other American readers -- she assumes that the reader knows who all the players are in the game. So when she talks about how Princess Elizabeth gets a phone call from her Uncle David from Paris on her birthday, there's an 'oomph' there if the reader happens to know that 'Uncle David' is the former King Edward VIII who abdicated a few years earlier, putting Elizabeth's father on the throne and Elizabeth in line to next inherit. But de Courcy never _says_ this; either the reader knows Edward VIII's family nickname, or they don't catch the significance of a few sentences. There were enough of these that I noticed because I did get them to make me wonder how many were passing me by.

But four stars, because it's one of the few non-fiction books I've read that I couldn't put down, and because the tying together of disparate elements -- medical fads, Chamberlain's hopes for peace, court fashions, the Kennedy family romping about London, fantastic parties and country-house dinners -- in a way that created a felt sense of life as lived in the period. The generalisations may be inaccurate, but I came away from it with a much better imaginative sense of what an upper-class girl alive in 1939 might have been like.

[Andie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Anne de Courcy chronicles the debutante season of 1939 – the last before World War II began, and in doing so, paints the portrait of a world that has completely vanished. She paints a picture of a nation whistling past the graveyard & hoping against hope that war would not come. An interesting period piece.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

15th-17th June 2015 This wss the first book I read on British social history and I loved it. Having read a lot more social history now, I can't rate this as high as 5 stars.

5 stars - I have read this so many times since 2003. The picture she paints of one of my favourite eras is great. Just a few months before the war. Wonderful.

[Whistler's Mom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Everything but the kitchen sink.

I expected this to be a lightweight look at the London Debutantes of 1939, perhaps following them through their future lives. I overlooked the book's length (almost 350 pages.) And I forgot about this author’s appetite for research.

It’s an exhaustive look at London (and the rest of the world) in the final year before WWII broke out. 1939 was NOT the last season, although the presentation of young women to the King and Queen was paused during the war years. The practice started again in 1946 and continued until 1958, when Queen Elizabeth discontinued it in favor of the more democratic Buckingham Palace Tea Parties.

1939 was the last season of peace and a very uneasy peace at that. She switches back and forth from political events to social history to Royalty/aristocrats and their endless parties.

I was fascinated by her description of the unfolding of the political situation and the collapse of the appeasement movement. She tells about the names we all know (Chamberlain, Churchill, et al) but also about the minor players. She quotes from diaries and letters to give a sense of the major players and how their feelings and opinions changed in response to world events. If she had titled it “The Beginning of WWII in Europe” I would have given it a pass yet that was the most interesting part to me.

I also like reading about how life was for all classes of people in the past and there’s plenty of that. She writes about gender expectations (which saw a major shift as soon as the war heated up!), the growth of the advertisement industry, changes in clothing styles, and even gives prices.

Where she lost me was the endless descriptions of society parties, the clothes worn, and the decorations. I skimmed. Boy, did I skim,

She writes about the Kennedy family, in London because Joe Kennedy, Sr was U.S. Ambassador to the Court of St James. But she claims that oldest daughter Rosemary suffered from “retardation.” That term is offensive now and most medical experts who’ve reviewed the evidence believe that Rosemary wasn't developmentally delayed. She may have had a form of bi-polar disease that made her behave in a way that was unacceptable at the time. It’s difficult to say at this distance.

She also missed Jean Kennedy when she was listing the Kennedy children. She refers to Rose Kennedy as beautiful. Rose Kennedy was a striking woman and always fashionably, extravagantly dressed, but she was not a classic beauty.

It’s a meaty book, chock full of information. I can't imagine anyone being deeply interesting in all of it. I admire this author’s attention to detail and her in-depth research. I loved her book about the three Curzon sisters (“The Vice-Roy’s Daughters”) and recently enjoyed her biography of Anthony Armstrong-Jones. She’s written a book called “Debs at War” and I can’t make up my mind. I’d like to know more about the role of women (of all classes) in the military. I do NOT want to know if Field Marshall Montgomery wore boxers or briefs!

I read it and enjoyed parts of it, but not the parts I thought I was going to enjoy. I’m giving it three stars because the good parts are very good and I’m glad I read them.

[Daisy May Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

My only issue with this was that it was not long enough: I could have read it several times over. The Last Season tells the story of that final few moments of life before the war for a very privileged sector of society. Champagne flows, lobster is eaten until it runs out and then we have some more, there's caviar for all, and house parties every other night (and every night in between) and eligible bright young things debuting and dancing and ugh, it is all delicious and I drank it all in. Structurally it's fairly straightforward; de Courcy works her way around key figures and focal points such as the government's final few inexorable steps towards the war, the race season, debutantes dancing the night away (chaperoned, naturellement), parties in freezing and enormous country houses where the butler would lay a ball of string out to guide you back from your room to the evening meal, I mean, ugh, I drink this all in, I do, I do.

I am fascinated by those moments of hinge, I think, where society is about to become something else and nobody knows it until, looking back, everybody does. Normally, you never know the big moments when you're in them but there's hints, here, of a generation knowing that everything is changing and that they are the last of their kind. I was fascinated by every chapter and moved by many of them - in one chapter, de Courcy writes about the university students of the time knowing that they will be the ones to go out and face it all ... It's hard to read, amazing to even realise, and beyond words to even, really, comprehend.

The Last Season shines in its frank delight in its topic, in its commitment towards primary sources and deeply delicious detail and sharing them with the reader - it's hard to resist such moments as the Lady who attempts to bribe her maid's driving text examiner: "...even if she is a little behind standard...please pass her", Queen Mary's gentle fishing for trinkets by complimenting them so much that the host would offer them to her, and the country house where newly arrived guests "found a dry martini, a carnation for a man's buttonhole and an orchid for a woman's corsage", I MEAN, I adore it , I adore it. I'd have read this a thousand times over.

[Lisa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Yes, I’m having a bit of a binge on books from the B-C shelf. But I’m a bit bemused about whyever I bought this one with my hard-earned dollar. The blurb says that it’s a skilful weaving of Thirties ‘Society’ with the political events leading up to the war. And some of it is. But the sycophantic society stuff is nauseating…
I guess it depends where a reader is coming from. Someone at Goodreads was disappointed by the politics and wanted more of the society gossip. *chuckle* Maybe this book was de Courcy’s way of teaching a bit of British history to the sort of people who read celebrity gossip magazines and who fawn over the rich and famous? Whatever her intent, there is far too much about debutantes and the vast amount of money spent on their coming-out, but these sections are clearly signalled and the impatient reader can skip them. I certainly did.
The bits that I was interested in were the background on Chamberlain, his rivalry with Churchill, the unpreparedness of Britain for war, the complex negotiations with potential allies especially Russia, and the juxtaposition of bad news with the hapless politician in receipt of it having to keep a stiff upper lip at some ball or dinner. The chapter titled ‘Health and Panaceas’ was an insight into commonplace deadly diseases in the era before antibiotics and the National Health system. De Courcy says that most people really were better off at home rather than in hospital because they were probably immune to their own germs whereas cross-infection in hospitals was often terminal, as indicated by the anecdote about a woman who had a leg amputated after puerperal fever. Plastic surgery, (which would be in demand for pilots rescued from burning planes), was a nightmare: between each graft the patient had to wait until the resulting infection cleared up, making any procedure longer and more painful than can be imagined now. And this situation was not so long ago really… my parents were teenagers in 1939.
To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2018/08/01/1...

[Vanesa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Cuando compré este libro pensé que podría disfrutar de unos de mis temas favoritos, la aristocracia inglesa, paralelamente a otro de mis temas favoritos, WWII. Sin embargo, me encontré con que "1939: The Last Season" tenía muchísimo más de lo segundo que de lo primero.

A ver, no es que me disgustara, porque al fin y al cabo siempre disfruto seguir leyendo y aprendiendo sobre WWII, pero mi meta estaba puesta en lo que el título del libro prometía. Me ha gustado, sí, pero hasta cierto punto. De a momentos me ha resultado bastante aburrido y con partes innecesarias, como cuando se le dedica todo un capítulo al hundimiento de un barco.

No sé, tengo demasiados sentimientos encontrados con este libro. Probablemente por eso tardé tanto en leerlo, entre que casi no he tenido tiempo. También es posible que mis expectativas hayan estado demasiado altas sobre el tema que pensé que el libro trataría. Who knows...

[KeenReader · Rating 3 out of 5]

I probably wouldn't have picked this up except I was on holiday and running out of things to read. Although it's not an era of history that particularly interests me, I did enjoy it. I thought the contrast of the frivolous season with the growing understanding that war was coming was very effective and gave a sense of how surreal it must have been, carrying on with normal life while more and more people realise that war was coming. I thought it was quite readable, especially for a non fiction book, but possibly that's one of the reasons Ms de Courcy decided to focus partly on the parties and events of the season, instead of trying to write about society in general.

[Karen Ross · Rating 4 out of 5]

Another in the vein of The Perfect Summer. The Last Season paints tro picture of 'society' and the lives of the privileged the summer leading up to the outbreak of WW11

Exquisite details of celebrations, society life, how people lived, ate, danced with a background of a range of historic occasion affecting these people.

Like now life continues in spite of threats and chaos.

Good tandem read witn The Perfect Summer

[Susan Baranoff · Rating 3 out of 5]

More about politics and less about society than I had expected. Some nice nuggets that, as a Yankee, I was unfamiliar with i. e. the meaning of the colors and dress at Eton. Nicely narrated although it was hard to tell if some words were British pronunciations or just generally mispronounced. Interesting, but not anything to rave about.

[Wkwv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Not as frivolous as it sounds

The Last Season gives a brief chronology of the shift of focus of the British aristocracy from their traditional political and social life in London into a rapid adjustment to the beginning of WW2. A little diplomacy, a little civil defense; but also Royal watching and a bit of fashion history. A very good pleasure read.

[Katharine · Rating 4 out of 5]

A portrait of Great Britain on the eve of the Second World War seen through the eyes of those undertaking the Season. It was rather broader in scope than I thought it would be and the picture it painted of people trying to live as normally as possible as war loomed ever closer became quite moving. An interesting read.

[debbie rogers · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful book portraying society in the last months before WW2.

Beautifully written. A really enjoyable and engaging read. Very well researched and lovely vignettes of the debutante and their families

[Leanne Pazik · Rating 5 out of 5]

What a great book.

On the brink of war with Germany, the last group of Debutante’s were presented to the King and Queen. So between what Germany was doing and what the Deb’s were doing to get ready and party for their coming out Season. The stark contrast was unbelievable.

[Adrienne · Rating 3 out of 5]

History of England during 1939, as the country went from peace to war, and all of society was on the verge of change. Each chapter dealt with a different aspect of social or political history, and of course some were more interesting than others to me. Listened on audio and enjoyed the narration.

[Mary Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was a good book but not at all what I thought it was going to be. It is heavily historical. Going over every bit of detail and history for the summer of 1939 in England from Ascot to Oxford. I thought it would be more about the debs of the season. It was only a little bit about this.

[Nancy Loe · Rating 2 out of 5]

I've liked her other work, but this was a real slog.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, a bit of toff porn, lifestyles of the rich and the famous. I think I would have liked more exploring the impact of the war on those girls.

[Jacqueline · Rating 2 out of 5]

Probably not one of my favorite Anne De Courcy books. She does however give details how the looming war years affected the ultra rich in Great Britain.

[Sandra · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not my Cupr of Tea

More pages devoted to minutiae of politics and military in months leading up to WWII.
I found some chapters very dry, indeed. Not what I expected.

[Pauline Manning · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was hoping for more narrative around the debs and society It was a broad stroke history of the UK going in to WW2 with a smattering of society news. Could have been better.

[Mary Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent-narrative history packed with social conventions married to historical events...I loved it.