Lord Berners

Composer, writer, painter and eccentric millionaire, Lord Berners led a life filled with music, art, travel and high society. Stravinsky, Picasso and Cocteau; the Sassoons, the Betjemans and the Sitwells; Harold Nicolson, Frederick Ashton and Gertrude Stein all were his friends and many came to stay at his house near Oxford, where the pigeons were dyed all colours of the rainbow and Salvador Dali played the piano in the swimming pool. 'A serious and deeply thoughtful attempt to perform two difficult tasks to search out the underlying psychology of this enigmatic man, and to assess his place in the cultural history of early 20th century Europe. . His life, alternatively silly, sparkling and touching, has waited nearly fifty years for a biography to do it justice. This was a book worth waiting for. ' Sunday Telegraph.