LOST GIRLS: Love & Literature In Wartime London

Ranging from Bloomsbury to Soho to Cairo and the couture studios of Schiaparelli and Norman Hartnell, the Lost Girls were the women who inspired the work of George Orwell, Evelyn Waugh, Anthony Powell and Nancy Mitford. They are the missing link between the Lost Generation and Bright Young People and the cultural revolution of the 1960s. Chic, glamorous and bohemian, as likely to be found living in a rat-haunted maisonette as dining at the Ritz, Lys Lubbock, Sonia Brownell, Barbara Skelton and Janetta Parlade cut a swath through English literary and artistic life at the height of World War Two. Three of them had affairs with Lucian Freud. One of them married George Orwell. Another became the mistress of the King of Egypt. With different and sometimes explosive personalities, they were the bright, beautiful, independent-minded women with tough upbringings who were determined to make the most of their lives in a chaotic time. Sweeping, passionate, and unexpectedly poignant, this is their untold story. There is also a useful note on their names since for example Barbara Skelton reemerged as Barbara Connelly, Barbara Weidenfeld and ultimately Barbara Jackson, and there were many marriages and even a change by deed poll from the others. We are taken back to the fourth year of the war, with Bedford Square not looking its best, its railings taken away supposedly to be made into Spitfires and half a dozen allotments displacing the lawn, a bomb crater on the western quadrant. Immerse yourself in this sumptuous cultural history as seen through the lives of four enigmatic women starting with Lys, a clerical worker and part-time model, known for her exceptional beauty, married to an aspiring actor. The cast of characters from September 1939 including poets and writers like Cyril Connelly, Peter Quennell, Stephen Spender and Frances and Ralph Partridge among the Bloomsbury Group. By a prize-winning author, 388pp, 16 pages of photos.