The Vogue Bedside Book II

by Josephine Ross (Editor)

British Vogue was seventy years old when this book was first published. It was founded in the autumn of 1916, at the height of the First World War, when the parent magazine could no longer be imported from America; in the decades since then its contributors have included many of the best-known writers of every generation, from Aldous Huxley, Virginia Woolf and the Sitwells in the 1920s, to Colin MacInnes, Bruce Chatwin and V.S. Pritchett in the latter part of the century. The past issues of British Vogue, bound in over two hundred massive volumes, form both a unique record of twentieth-century fashion and a remarkable literary archive.
So much more of the best and most enjoyable writing had to be left out of the first volume of The Vogue Bedside Book for lack of space - Lee Miller's interview with Colette in post-war Paris, for instance; Angus Wilson and Iris Murdoch on the cinema; Angela Carter on Tokyo. There was enough for another good anthology.
The second selection of the best of British Vogue spanning the years and the contributors from Dorothy Parker in 1919 to Auberon Waugh in 1985, still represents only a small proportion of the riches in variety and quality of the features pages contained in the past issues of the magazine.

240 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1986

About the author

As a finalist in Vogue talent contest, Ross won a job on Vogue and joined the magazine after graduating from London University.
She left the magazine two years later to write full time, and her publications include a biography of The Winter Queen (1979) and Beaton in Vogue (1986).
She is married to medieval historian and writer James Chambers; and her interests include history and fencing. She lives in London.