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CONSPIRACY OF SILENCE
The Secret Life Of Anthony Blunt
- By Barrie Penrose and Simon Freeman -
Illustrated with Photographs
ISBN: 0246122005
Publisher: Grafton Books, London, UK
Published: 1986
Binding: HARDcover pages
Condition: UNread & displayed condition! HERE in MELBOURNE! A retired display
copy as illustrated!
Edition: FIRST EDITION: 1st printing
TIGHT, SCARCE HARDCOVER WITH ~ IN MELBOURNE ...
WHY do ebayers buy from US?
Because you KNOW what you're getting. My close up photos are of the actual item!!
Remains UNread - it was the display copy instore . It is Tight - neat, no inscriptions or marks within. Appears as in my photos - this is the exact copy!! A nicely preserved copy - superb!
No discernible shelf wear to the black cloth-backed boards themselves, the interior is tight and spotlessly clean with 588 pages. THIS copy is the FIRST EDITION: First printing from 1986 - the UK publishing by Grafton Books, London. Spotless black cloth-backed boards, with 64 photographs, bibliography, glossary of names, and an index.
There are many black and white photographic illustrations.
SCARCE title to find in 1st Edition UNread - this is a FIRST EDITION copy!!
In original black cloth HARDcover binding - striking silver titles to the spine - a pristine hardcover, housed in the original publisher's dustjacket which is in excellent condition overall - unclipped, and just underside reinforcement to corner folds & spotting.
(Stored with 2021!)
Measures approx. 9¾ x 6¾ inches or 25 x 17cms
SYNOPSIS ....
This is Penrose and Freeman's detailed biography of Anthony Blunt ... Blunt was the successor to Kenneth Clark as Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, but he secretly was a core member of a conspiracy to recruit agents for the Communists - this biography of Anthony Blunt, details how he was a Russian spy working in Britain s secret service .. He was exposed in Parliament by Prime Minister Thatcher in 1979.
Throughout WWII and the Cold War which followed, Britain's Secret service was compromised by a group of privileged, Cambridge-educated Englishmen who consistently betrayed their country by working for Stalin's Russia. This book reveals how this brilliant intellectual combined his work as an art historian with a personal need for duplicity and danger which both found expression in his activities both as a Soviet agent and a promiscuous homosexual.
Anthony (formerly Sir Anthony) Blunt, Surveyor of the Queen's Pictures, was revealed in 1979 to be the "Fourth Man" in a Soviet spy ring which included Guy Burgess, Donald MacLean and Kim Philby. Blunt's role in the conspiracy, which dated back to the late 1930s, was kept secret by British governments for 15 years. The coverup, and the question of to what extent Queen Elizabeth II was aware of it, is the subject of Alan Bennett's teleplay, "A Question of Attribution".
Before Prime Minister Thatcher exposed him in 1979, Sir Anthony Blunt had been a world-class art historian. He was also a core member of the Cambridge Conspiracy, an intelligence operation whose purpose was to recruit young idealists in elite British universities to become covert agents of espionage. The success of Spycatcher (750,000 sold) assures an impressive audience for this title. 24 photos.
Throughout WW II and the Cold War, Britain’s Secret Service was compromised by a group of privileged, Cambridge-educated Englishmen who consistently betrayed their country by working for Stalin’s Russia. Until he was publicly exposed in 1979 and stripped of his knighthood, Sir Anthony Blunt, Keeper of the Queen’s Pictures, seemed to personify the Establishment. But as an undergraduate in the 1930s, after meeting Guy Burgess, he became a communist and later a spy.
This book is an examination of how this brilliant art historian, appalled by the poverty and deprivation of 1930s Britain, as were so many of his contemporaries, became enmeshed in the series of events that made him a traitor to his country and the class which had nurtured him. Illustrated with black and white photos
About the Author
Barrie Penrose (born 1942, Croydon, UK) is a British investigative journalist, interviewer and trainer. He worked for the New York Herald Tribune in Paris, the Observer in London, BBC Television and the Sunday Times. His books include Stalin’s Gold: the story of HMS Edinburgh and its treasure, and with Simon Freeman Rinkagate: the rise and fall of Jeremy Thorpe and Conspiracy of Silence: the secret life of Anthony Blunt. With Roger Courtiour, he produced The Pencourt File based on interviews requested by Harold Wilson about conspiracies in the final years of his government. He was a British investigative journalist, interviewer and trainer.
Very Interesting read!
Reviews
Publishers Weekly review ... A scandal broke in 1979 when an "establishment cover-up'' was revealed in England. Why was Blunt, who had been a top Soviet agent, granted immunity and allowed to continue serving the queen as art adviser? PW called this an ``intimate, low-key yet gripping'' biography. The authors are reporters for the London Sunday Times . (September)
A really good resource ... There was a great malaise growing among the powerful countries during the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th. (You can get a taste of that in many ways, in works as diverse as Edmund de Waal's The Hare with Amber Eyes, AS Byatt's The Childrens Book, Osbert Sitwell's autobiography, especially volumes I and II (Left Hand, Right Hand; The Scarlet Tree) and Lesley Downer's account of Japan, The Brothers) The people who became "The Cambridge Spies" were caught up in the aftermath of the chaos unleashed by the First World War. Nothing in their world was as it had been before that war, but for the most part nobody had been able to grasp how different everything was. It is only against the backdrop of that trauma and chaos that I can make any sense of anything anybody described in this book did with their lives. Conspiracy of Silence is an enormous collection of facts, opinions and impressions, carefully collected and presented. Depending on which contemporary source is being quoted, Anthony Blunt is arrogant or kind, secretive or confiding, aloof or charming, innocent of espionage or a known spy, an idealist working for a better world, a snob with no interest in common people, a sexual predator, competent as an art historian and administrator or woefully incompetent and high-handed, in love with Guy Burgess or simply his loyal friend. It doesn't surprise me that John Banville, faced with such a conflicting stew of information and having watched Blunt interviewed on the BBC, chose to write his own fictional version of the tale, so there could be some kind of emotional centre to it. (The Untouchable. A wonderful novel and the reason I started reading about Blunt.) Why did he do it? All I can conclude is that he did it from hatred. Hatred and a deep inner trauma. Anybody else's hypothesis could be equally valid. Conspiracy of Silence is a good resource to work with in studying this perplexing period of time in the world.
A full insight ..... This biography is detailed, and thorough and occasionally very amusing. The authors were journalists on the Sunday Times and it shows in the crisp writing style.
.. A wealth of relevant detail and logically written without any attempt either to glorify or malign the subject.
Marvellous Reading!
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