The Whispering Gallery Leaves from a Diplomat's Diary

This fake diary was the subject of a famous court case at which the author (revealed to be Hesketh Pearson) was acquitted. 'Among the diplomats of Europe my name is a household word' notes the author. 'I say this in no boastful spirit. It just happens to be so'. And so, indeed, it seems. For here are intimate recollections of the author's friends and acquaintances in high social and diplomatic circles right across Europe during the first decades of the 20th century - from Lord Northcliffe, 'The Napoleon of Fleet Street' to Warriors (Kitchener, Marshal Joffre); Empire Builders (Rhodes, Chamberlain); Three Caesars (Kaiser Wilhelm, Tsar Nicholas, Emperor Francis Joseph); Two Despots (Lenin, Mussolini) to Kings, Scribblers, Statesmen, and assorted other luminaries including Lord Leverhulme - The Soap King - Lady Astor and Max Beerbohm. At once hilarious and illuminating, these 'recollections' of the great movers and shakers of the early 20th Century actually provide wonderfully subtle and colourful descriptions of just how they moved and shook the public, and - in smoke-filled rooms - their equally ambitious associates. The portraits are full of insight and remain indelibly imprinted on the reader's mind. So many of the great, and not so great, decisions that would shape the twentieth century took place behind closed doors. This diary is a whispering gallery of the shadowy manoeuvres, the expedient alliances, the posturings, the quiet coups, and of course the indiscretions, blunders and pre-occupations of all of the dominant personalities of the day.