Good company: Diaries : January 1967-December 1970

Diaries of Frances Partridge #5

by Frances Partridge

Frances Partridge is the oldest surviving member of the Bloomsbury Group. At the age of 93 she published "Other People" which chronicled her life between 1963 and 1966 when she was struggling to come to terms with the deaths of both her husband Ralph and her son Burgo. This sequel to that volume follows her life between the years 1967 and 1970. With the support of friends, who included Julia Strachey, Robert Kee, Raymond Mortimer, Rosamund Lehmann and Gerald Brenan, travelling and her unfailing interest in the world outside, Partridge comes to terms with existence after her twofold loss. She is endlessly observant of nature and people, and has an acerbic sense of humour, a refusal to indulge in self-pity and, perhaps above all, a passion for conversation.

Genres: Memoir

320 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1994

About the author

Frances Partridge CBE was the last surviving member of the Bloomsbury Group. She is most known for her diaries.

Her father was William Cecil Marshall, architect and runner-up in the very first Wimbledon tournament. She was the sister of Ray Garnett and Thomas Marshall.

Reviews

[Paulo Santos · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's always a pleasure to go back to Frances Partridge's diaries. For several reasons: I really like her personality, she must have been a very kind and warm person, passionate for life and friendship. Above all, I admire her capacity to keep making her life as interesting as she could, mostly out of her relationships with her friends, the good company of the title. Even over 60, she was still trying to make sense out of life, through reading, conversation with intelligent people, travelling. I like her keen observations about people and places and events, and I find her rending of her friendships extremely interesting and realistic - the way she conveys all the ambiguity and complexities of long term friendships is especially to the point when she describes her relationships with Julia Strachey or Gerald Brenan, who emerge from her depictions as real and lively people (not so much Janetta Woolley, who seems kind of lame).