The Lost Girls: Love and Literature in Wartime London
The Booker Prize–nominated author of Derby Day delivers a sumptuous cultural history as seen through the lives of four enigmatic women.

Who were the Lost Girls? 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 II.

Three of them had affairs with Lucian Freud. One of them married George Orwell. Another became the mistress of the King of Egypt.

They had very different—and sometimes explosive—personalities, but taken together they form a distinctive part of the wartime demographic: bright, beautiful, independent-minded women with tough upbringings who were determined to make the most of their lives in a chaotic time.

Ranging from Bloomsbury and Soho to Cairo and the couture studios of Schiaparelli and Hartnell, the Lost Girls would inspire 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 Dionysiac cultural revolution of the 1960s. Sweeping, passionate, and unexpectedly poignant, this is their untold story.
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The Lost Girls: Love and Literature in Wartime London
The Booker Prize–nominated author of Derby Day delivers a sumptuous cultural history as seen through the lives of four enigmatic women.

Who were the Lost Girls? 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 II.

Three of them had affairs with Lucian Freud. One of them married George Orwell. Another became the mistress of the King of Egypt.

They had very different—and sometimes explosive—personalities, but taken together they form a distinctive part of the wartime demographic: bright, beautiful, independent-minded women with tough upbringings who were determined to make the most of their lives in a chaotic time.

Ranging from Bloomsbury and Soho to Cairo and the couture studios of Schiaparelli and Hartnell, the Lost Girls would inspire 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 Dionysiac cultural revolution of the 1960s. Sweeping, passionate, and unexpectedly poignant, this is their untold story.
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The Lost Girls: Love and Literature in Wartime London

The Lost Girls: Love and Literature in Wartime London

by D. J. Taylor
The Lost Girls: Love and Literature in Wartime London

The Lost Girls: Love and Literature in Wartime London

by D. J. Taylor

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Overview

The Booker Prize–nominated author of Derby Day delivers a sumptuous cultural history as seen through the lives of four enigmatic women.

Who were the Lost Girls? 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 II.

Three of them had affairs with Lucian Freud. One of them married George Orwell. Another became the mistress of the King of Egypt.

They had very different—and sometimes explosive—personalities, but taken together they form a distinctive part of the wartime demographic: bright, beautiful, independent-minded women with tough upbringings who were determined to make the most of their lives in a chaotic time.

Ranging from Bloomsbury and Soho to Cairo and the couture studios of Schiaparelli and Hartnell, the Lost Girls would inspire 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 Dionysiac cultural revolution of the 1960s. Sweeping, passionate, and unexpectedly poignant, this is their untold story.

Product Details

ISBN-13: 9781643133768
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Publication date: 02/04/2020
Sold by: SIMON & SCHUSTER
Format: eBook
Pages: 336
File size: 21 MB
Note: This product may take a few minutes to download.

About the Author

D. J. Taylor is the author of The Lost Girls; Derby Day (nominated for the Booker Prize); and Orwell: The Life (2003), winner of the Whitbread Biography Award. D. J. is a book critic for several British newspapers and lives in London.

Table of Contents

A Note on Names ix

Monetary Values ix

The Cast in September 1939 x

Introduction: An Evening in Bedford Square 1

Part 1

1 The Wanton Chase 15

2 'The Little Girl Who Makes Everyone's Heart Beat Faster' 41

3 When the Going was Good: Lys, Connolly and Horizon 1939-45 61

Interlude: Mapping the Forties Scene 79

4 'Skeltie darling …' 85

Interlude: Glur 103

5 Struggling to Go Beyond Herself: Sonia 1918-45 109

Interlude: Angela 125

6 Blinding Impulsions: Janetta 1940-5 137

Interlude: Anna 159

7 Cairo Nights: Barbara 1943-4 163

Interlude: Joan 179

Part 2

8 Ways and Means: Lost Girl Style 185

Interlude: On Not Being Boring 203

9 Sussex Place: Connolly, Lys, Janetta and Others 1945-9 207

Interlude: Office Life 225

10 The Man in the Hospital Red: Sonia 1945-50 229

Interlude: Soma's Things 253

11 The Destructive Element: Barbara, Connolly and Others 1944-51 255

Interlude: Parents and Daughters 273

12 The Invisible Worm: Cyril and the Women 277

13 Projections: The Lost Girls in Fiction 287

Interlude: Barbara's Style 307

14 Afterwards 313

Finale: The Last Lost Girl 335

Notes and Further Reading 345

Acknowledgements 372

Index 374

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