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A Late Education
A Late Education is the story of how Alan Moorehead, one the finest Australian journalists of the century, grew up in the suburbs of Melbourne, how he escaped to Europe at the age of 26 and plunged into the hallucinating prewar days in London and Paris. Moorehead was in England when Edward VIII abdicated, in Paris during its last gay days of the 30's and was sent to Spain on a tanker smuggling petrol into Valencia.
But this is also the story of Moorehead's friendship with a fellow journalist, Alexander Clifford. They were complementary opposites, professional rivals as well as friends. Clifford was an intellectual European and a profound pessimist, uncertain of himself and the world. The expatriate Moorehead was driven by his curiosity, brilliance and eagerness to discover the world. Together the pair went through the battles in the Western Desert, the landings in Sicily and France, and the final destruction of Hitler and Germany, which Moorehead recorded in his marvellous war books "Eclipse" and "African trilogy". After the war both Moorehead and Clifford continued to work in Europe, and their long conversations only ended with Clifford's death. By then Moorehead was writing the historical books for which he is so well known. A Late Education, the last book he wrote, is his own history.
But this is also the story of Moorehead's friendship with a fellow journalist, Alexander Clifford. They were complementary opposites, professional rivals as well as friends. Clifford was an intellectual European and a profound pessimist, uncertain of himself and the world. The expatriate Moorehead was driven by his curiosity, brilliance and eagerness to discover the world. Together the pair went through the battles in the Western Desert, the landings in Sicily and France, and the final destruction of Hitler and Germany, which Moorehead recorded in his marvellous war books "Eclipse" and "African trilogy". After the war both Moorehead and Clifford continued to work in Europe, and their long conversations only ended with Clifford's death. By then Moorehead was writing the historical books for which he is so well known. A Late Education, the last book he wrote, is his own history.
208 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1970
2 people are currently reading
85 people want to read
About the author
Alan Moorehead
98 books91 followersAlan Moorehead was lionised as the literary man of action: the most celebrated war correspondent of World War II; author of award winning books; star travel writer of The New Yorker; pioneer publicist of wildlife conservation. At the height of his success, his writing suddenly stopped and when, 17 years later, his death was announced, he seemed a heroic figure from the past. His fame as a writer gave him the friendship of Ernest Hemingway, George Bernard Shaw and Field Marshall Montgomery and the courtship and marriage of his beautiful wife Lucy Milner.
After 1945, he turned to writing books, including Eclipse, Gallipoli (for which he won the Duff Cooper Prize), The White Nile, The Blue Nile, and finally, A Late Education. He was awarded an OBE in 1946, and died in 1983.
After 1945, he turned to writing books, including Eclipse, Gallipoli (for which he won the Duff Cooper Prize), The White Nile, The Blue Nile, and finally, A Late Education. He was awarded an OBE in 1946, and died in 1983.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
December 1, 2015
I suppose there's got to be coincidence. It doesn't mean anything. But I happened to pick up "A Late Education" straight after reading Richard Adam's memoir and was immediately struck by both similarities and dissimilarities.
Adams was on himself, at pains to show how clever he was and at what level of society he belonged to - Oxford and all the rest were working class.
By comparison, Moorehead's a breath of fresh air. He's delightfully uncomplicated and it shows in his writing. He wants to be someones friend and puts himself out for it. As opposed to Adams, Morrehead admits to being something of a scamp. At least, as journalists he shows his profession up as being less than ethical. The two hoodwink their respective editors. They get stories in the time-honoured way, by subterfuge.
And woven through the story in this little gem of a book is another story - deeper, darker and at the same time more wonderful. It is life with out the corn. There are one or two perplexities. A pregnant wife appears from nowhere; relationships come and go; there are loosse ends.
But that's life and this little book is life. Well worth reading, (he happens to be a rather famous Australian author)
Adams was on himself, at pains to show how clever he was and at what level of society he belonged to - Oxford and all the rest were working class.
By comparison, Moorehead's a breath of fresh air. He's delightfully uncomplicated and it shows in his writing. He wants to be someones friend and puts himself out for it. As opposed to Adams, Morrehead admits to being something of a scamp. At least, as journalists he shows his profession up as being less than ethical. The two hoodwink their respective editors. They get stories in the time-honoured way, by subterfuge.
And woven through the story in this little gem of a book is another story - deeper, darker and at the same time more wonderful. It is life with out the corn. There are one or two perplexities. A pregnant wife appears from nowhere; relationships come and go; there are loosse ends.
But that's life and this little book is life. Well worth reading, (he happens to be a rather famous Australian author)
October 10, 2019
This book is a compilation of remembrances by Alan Moorehead of his early life and career as a foreign correspondent of his close friendship with Alex Clifford, a fellow journalist. Five of the eleven chapters detail the beginning of their friendship and the book ends with Alex Clifford's early death. The remaining three "friendship" chapters are interspersed among stories of his Australian childhood and his work as a journalist. While Alan Moorehead wrote all the chapters, he came down with a debilitating disease, according to Wikipedia, and it was his wife, Lucy, who compiled the interesting arrangement of this book. While the book does not give a full picture of his life, he wrote so well and insightfully on so many aspects of his life and friendship, that one does not feel shortchanged.
October 18, 2021
4 ⭐️ A memoir created by the wife of war journalist Alan Moorehead after an untimely stoke kept him from writing, reading or speaking. Wonderfully engaging anecdotes with an emphasis on locations, incidents and his long-term friendship with fellow correspondent Alex Clifford. His methodical style (well constructed sentences) and attention to detail (no abstract concepts) create highly memorable scenes. Characters are vividly portrayed through description but also through dialog and actions. Moorehead's career as a war correspondent in Spain, Africa and elsewhere is conveyed in a self-deprecating manner that invites the reader to look into his many articles and books to more fully understand what he experienced.
Highlights (among many others) for me were brief descriptions of his post-war meetings with Bernard Berenson and Ernest Hemingway.
About Hemingway, he writes, "I do not know how he talked to other people, but to me he always talked of books, always of writing, and with the humility and doubt of a writer who reads for five hours or so every day, and who writes and rewrites for as long as his brain will work, knowing that it is only by a miracle that he will ever achieve a phrase, even a word, that will correspond to the vision in his mind" (188).
And, "Speaking of writing fiction, [Hemingway] said that he never knew what was going to follow from one page to the next; one was simply seized with an idea, and if the writer truly expressed his feelings the plot and eventually the style and pattern of the book would take care of themselves."
Moorehead admires the people he expands upon, and is genuinely interested in conveying the positive impact of those people on his own thinking, his own life experience. In doing so, he avoids drawing attention to himself while revealing his interests and broadness of mind. In other words, he creates a vivacious self-portrait by describing others.
The afterword by Michael Heyward is also excellent, an appreciative literary biography.
Highlights (among many others) for me were brief descriptions of his post-war meetings with Bernard Berenson and Ernest Hemingway.
About Hemingway, he writes, "I do not know how he talked to other people, but to me he always talked of books, always of writing, and with the humility and doubt of a writer who reads for five hours or so every day, and who writes and rewrites for as long as his brain will work, knowing that it is only by a miracle that he will ever achieve a phrase, even a word, that will correspond to the vision in his mind" (188).
And, "Speaking of writing fiction, [Hemingway] said that he never knew what was going to follow from one page to the next; one was simply seized with an idea, and if the writer truly expressed his feelings the plot and eventually the style and pattern of the book would take care of themselves."
Moorehead admires the people he expands upon, and is genuinely interested in conveying the positive impact of those people on his own thinking, his own life experience. In doing so, he avoids drawing attention to himself while revealing his interests and broadness of mind. In other words, he creates a vivacious self-portrait by describing others.
The afterword by Michael Heyward is also excellent, an appreciative literary biography.
November 7, 2010
3 and a half stars. Review to come.
April 23, 2025
What an amazing writer! I didn't discover him until reading the excellent biography by Thornton McCamish. Why he's managed to fly under the radar for so long, I can't imagine.
August 21, 2020
Alan Moorehead was for a time one of the most successful writers in the English-speaking world. He made his name as a war correspondent, and went on after the conflict to produce a dozen or so non-fiction books on subjects as diverse as the Gallipoli Campaign, and a history of the Nile River. He had a fascinating life, and A Late Education gives us some insight into what he did and thought (for an excellent biography of Alan Moorehead, I can highly recommend Our Man Elsewhere by Thornton McCamish).
The book is divided up into chapters that deal with various events in his life, each an individual essay. The exception to this are the interspersed chapters entitled "To the Edgeware Road" (I-V), which document his close friendship with fellow correspondent Alex Clifford. We learn from the various essays that Moorehead was not a great scholar, although he attended both Scotch College and Melbourne University. He knew from quite an early age that writing was what he wanted to do, and so began his journalistic career in Melbourne, before heading off to London in the 1930s. He was very keen to leave Australia and be where the action was, and he tells us of his early days in Europe, where he was drinking in life, having affairs with engaged women, and travelling around Europe trying to find a story. He was in Berlin during the Olympics, and spent quite a while in Gibraltar during the Spanish Civil War, trying to find a way to get in to Spain.
He never made it into that country for longer than a few days, but his descriptions of the berthing of the Deutschland to bury its dead after being attacked by the Spanish Republican airforce, the effect of the German retaliatory bombardment of Almeria, of running the blockade in a tanker ship, and of seeing refugees enter France after crossing the Pyrenees bring - as always with Moorehead's writing - the scenes alive in the reader's mind.
After a chapter describing his life in Paris just before the war, we are then taken to Tuscany and I Tatti for an appreciative short description of Bernard Berenson, who helped Moorehead so much in his early literary forays.
Meanwhile throughout these adventures, Moorehead has been describing his friendship with Alex Clifford. After an icy first meeting, they quickly became friends, although they had opposing personalities - the cerebral, tentative Clifford turned out to be the perfect foil for the assertive brash Moorehead, and together they made a great team as they followed the armies through the desert, on to Italy and France. It is obvious that Moorehead deeply loved his friend, and was so happy for him when he finally found love and married. Tragically not long after Clifford was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease and the last installment of "To the Edgeware Road" describes Clifford's last years of life and his death. Clifford had "a morbid notion that he would die in the Edgware Road", which to him epitomized dreary middle-class moralities and life. It is here that the irony of naming this section becomes clear as, on his death, Clifford was in fact buried from a funeral parlour on the Edgware Road.
This hides a greater irony: that A Late Education, while written by Moorehead, was not edited, assembled, or published by him. In 1966 Moorehead suffered a severe stroke, and was unable to write again (he died in 1983). A Late Education was brought together by his wife Lucy from pieces he had written earlier in his life, and it became the last book issued under his name.
If you like good writing, you should read it.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
The book is divided up into chapters that deal with various events in his life, each an individual essay. The exception to this are the interspersed chapters entitled "To the Edgeware Road" (I-V), which document his close friendship with fellow correspondent Alex Clifford. We learn from the various essays that Moorehead was not a great scholar, although he attended both Scotch College and Melbourne University. He knew from quite an early age that writing was what he wanted to do, and so began his journalistic career in Melbourne, before heading off to London in the 1930s. He was very keen to leave Australia and be where the action was, and he tells us of his early days in Europe, where he was drinking in life, having affairs with engaged women, and travelling around Europe trying to find a story. He was in Berlin during the Olympics, and spent quite a while in Gibraltar during the Spanish Civil War, trying to find a way to get in to Spain.
He never made it into that country for longer than a few days, but his descriptions of the berthing of the Deutschland to bury its dead after being attacked by the Spanish Republican airforce, the effect of the German retaliatory bombardment of Almeria, of running the blockade in a tanker ship, and of seeing refugees enter France after crossing the Pyrenees bring - as always with Moorehead's writing - the scenes alive in the reader's mind.
After a chapter describing his life in Paris just before the war, we are then taken to Tuscany and I Tatti for an appreciative short description of Bernard Berenson, who helped Moorehead so much in his early literary forays.
Meanwhile throughout these adventures, Moorehead has been describing his friendship with Alex Clifford. After an icy first meeting, they quickly became friends, although they had opposing personalities - the cerebral, tentative Clifford turned out to be the perfect foil for the assertive brash Moorehead, and together they made a great team as they followed the armies through the desert, on to Italy and France. It is obvious that Moorehead deeply loved his friend, and was so happy for him when he finally found love and married. Tragically not long after Clifford was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Disease and the last installment of "To the Edgeware Road" describes Clifford's last years of life and his death. Clifford had "a morbid notion that he would die in the Edgware Road", which to him epitomized dreary middle-class moralities and life. It is here that the irony of naming this section becomes clear as, on his death, Clifford was in fact buried from a funeral parlour on the Edgware Road.
This hides a greater irony: that A Late Education, while written by Moorehead, was not edited, assembled, or published by him. In 1966 Moorehead suffered a severe stroke, and was unable to write again (he died in 1983). A Late Education was brought together by his wife Lucy from pieces he had written earlier in his life, and it became the last book issued under his name.
If you like good writing, you should read it.
Check out my other reviews at http://aviewoverthebell.blogspot.com.au/
January 20, 2016
This is an unusual but captivating, episodic autobiography of an Australian journalist in the 1930's to early 1950's.
The style is beautifully clear and makes for an engaging, easy and thought provoking read.
The events covered are both commonplace for their time (an Australian coming to England and Europe) and momentous (the Second World War African campaign, although these parts are about how Alan Moorehead found it, rather than the conflict itself, as he has written three books on that).
It is a book about a journalist/writer's life. It is a book about friendship, especially that with fellow war correspondent, Alex Clifford, as they covered the Second World War African campaign together and remained friends until Alex's early death in 1952, with which the book ends.
The book also includes brief portraits of Alan Moorehead's acquaintance with Ernest Hemingway and Bernard Berenson (I had to look up who this art historian was).
The core of the book is Alan Moorehead's friendship with Alex Clifford. It is the honesty and clarity of this friendship which makes this book very special. All the more so when you realise that the book was edited together by his wife, from autobiographical essays, after Alan Moorehead suffered a stroke in 1966.
I read the Slightly Foxed edition, which is a beautifully produced little hardback (and as in a limited edition of 2,000, you should get hold of it if you can).
The style is beautifully clear and makes for an engaging, easy and thought provoking read.
The events covered are both commonplace for their time (an Australian coming to England and Europe) and momentous (the Second World War African campaign, although these parts are about how Alan Moorehead found it, rather than the conflict itself, as he has written three books on that).
It is a book about a journalist/writer's life. It is a book about friendship, especially that with fellow war correspondent, Alex Clifford, as they covered the Second World War African campaign together and remained friends until Alex's early death in 1952, with which the book ends.
The book also includes brief portraits of Alan Moorehead's acquaintance with Ernest Hemingway and Bernard Berenson (I had to look up who this art historian was).
The core of the book is Alan Moorehead's friendship with Alex Clifford. It is the honesty and clarity of this friendship which makes this book very special. All the more so when you realise that the book was edited together by his wife, from autobiographical essays, after Alan Moorehead suffered a stroke in 1966.
I read the Slightly Foxed edition, which is a beautifully produced little hardback (and as in a limited edition of 2,000, you should get hold of it if you can).
November 19, 2012
A good introduction to Moorehead's early life in Australia and his time as a war correspondent, during the Second World War, much of which was spent with his good friend Englishman Alexander Clifford.
Stories about the desert war and his time in Cairo and Alexandria, travelling on an oil tanker from Greece to Spain and observing thousands of refugees heading into France over the Pyrenees are vivdly portrayed. After the war he writes about an interesting meeting with Ernest Hemingway.
Moorehead wrote well.
Stories about the desert war and his time in Cairo and Alexandria, travelling on an oil tanker from Greece to Spain and observing thousands of refugees heading into France over the Pyrenees are vivdly portrayed. After the war he writes about an interesting meeting with Ernest Hemingway.
Moorehead wrote well.
October 9, 2012
Published by Slightly Foxed, only the nineteenth book on their list, Alan Moorhead was a great journalist and this is a wonderful account of how he came to be so good. It was a particular privilege to be able to visit some of the scenes of the Spanish Civil war described in the book, as I was reading it.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews