Description
Book SynopsisA Times Book of the Year 2019
''You should not deny yourself the pleasure of reading it'' Sunday Times
''A remarkable work and an important addition to the extraordinary wartime history of literary London'' Literary Review
Who were the Lost Girls? At least a dozen or so young women at large in Blitz-era London have a claim to this title. But Lost Girls concentrates on just four: Lys Lubbock, Sonia Brownell, Barbara Skelton and Janetta Parlade. Chic, glamorous and bohemian, as likely to be found living in a rat-haunted maisonette as dining at the Ritz, they cut a swathe through English literary and artistic life in the 1940s. Three of them had affairs with Lucian Freud. One of them married George Orwell. Another became the mistress of the King of Egypt and was flogged by him on the steps of the Royal Palace. And all of them were associated with the decade''s most celebrated literary magazine, Horizon,
Trade Review
DJ Taylor's new book is an exploratory and sometimes eye-popping slice of social history . . . Taylor is a strikingly versatile writer - novelist, critic, historian, author of the standard biography of Orwell, and the acerbic wit behind Private Eye's What You Didn't Miss column . . . If you have even a passing interest in human relationships and the imagination, you should not deny yourself the pleasure of reading it -- John Carey * Sunday Times *
DJ Taylor, who has previously written about the bright young things of the interwar years, makes a convincing case for seeing Sonia and her peers as a racier, tougher and far more intelligent group than has previously been allowed * Guardian *
Lively account of the chaotic way of life at the Horizon office . . . In Lost Girls, Taylor presents a colourful portrait of this fascinating, sophisticated and highly sexualised literary world . . . expertly narrated . . . excellent descriptions of the daily routine in the Horizon office . . . a remarkable work and an important addition to the extraordinary wartime history of literary London -- Selina Hastings * Literary Review *
Entertaining, ever shrewd account * Spectator *
Enjoyable . . . an often very funny chronicle of fiendishly complicated and rackety love lives . . . infectious . . . deliciously readable -- Lucy Lethbridge * Financial Times *
Enticing . . . Like a private detective on an adultery case, Taylor eavesdrops in bedsits and furnished flats, lurks in Chelsea pubs and Soho dives, reporting in a style both elegant and deadpan. His text is crowded with throwaway gems -- Jane Thynne * The Tablet *
Highly entertaining * Country Life *
Immersive, intense and dense with detail, Taylor's latest work is a wonderfully niche and pointed take on lost girls from a lost era; a real-life wartime drama, on an intricate and intimate scale * Irish Times *
Engaging and stylishly written . . . captures the edgy atmosphere of 1940s bohemian London * Times Literary Supplement *
A lively, perceptive, and gossip-strewn inquiry into an overlooked aspect of an influential corner of London's literary life * The New Criterion *
An empathetic group biography of four bright, beautiful, literary women in wartime London . . . highly entertaining account . . . insightful and empathetic group biography * Wall Street Journal *
Thoughtful, witty writer . . . poignant * London Review of Books *
Enthralling . . . because of D.J. Taylor's vivid and affecting group biography, the "lost girls" will never be lost again * The Washington Post *
