Antonia Fraser (Must You Go?) has always adored History with a capital H. From childhood, she reveled in biographies of historical figures and accounts of the British monarchy, with a particular affection for Mary, Queen of Scots (the subject, many years later, of her first full-length biography). In My History, her second memoir, Fraser details her growing-up years and her burgeoning love of the discipline that would become her own.
The eldest child of two politically and intellectually active aristocrats, Fraser grew up in Oxford, its rarefied academic air serving as the backdrop for long bicycle rides and other escapades with her siblings. Despite wartime rationing of food, fuel and other materials, Fraser paints an alluring portrait of the City of Dreaming Spires, from the "sturdy charm" of her family's North Oxford neighborhood to the constant pealing of the city's bells. Fraser later converted to Catholicism and received part of her education at a convent, but she returned to Oxford for university, matriculating at Lady Margaret Hall.
Immersed in the close-knit world of Britain's upper classes, Fraser moved with ease in her parents' social circle (even while dealing with the typically awkward feelings of adolescence). While her anecdotes of the post-World War II London social whirl may be confusing to American readers (Fraser assumes her audience is familiar with the tangled relationships of the English aristocracy), her warm, confidential tone provides a cozy glimpse into a vanished milieu. Though definitely an insider, Fraser escapes snobbery by offering sly, witty commentary on her family and friends, and gently satirizing her own naïveté as a young woman trying to make her own way in postwar London.
Alongside Fraser's vignettes of social exploits and early career (including a job selling hats at Fenwick's department store and a stint in publishing), she recounts her deepening love of history as a field. Her friendship with novelist Anthony Powell, her uncle by marriage, helped Fraser to begin "equating writing, discipline and a good life." Eventually, she realized that "writing History was an art in itself," which could produce "entertainment as well as enlightenment." Her biography of Mary, Queen of Scots, published in 1969, launched Fraser's writing career, which has included more than 20 books, fiction and nonfiction.
A charming portrait of the world in which she grew up and an affectionate chronicle of a young woman finding her calling, My History will delight historians and Anglophiles alike. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams
Shelf Talker: Biographer Antonia Fraser chronicles her early years and her path to becoming an historian in a witty, beautifully told memoir.