ARTHUR BRYANT

COLLINS, 1966

9" x 6" x 1"

BOOK WEIGHT: 1 lb 2 oz

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     Sir Arthur Wynne Morgan Bryant, CH, CBE (18 February 1899 – 22 January 1985) was an English historian, columnist for The Illustrated London News and man of affairs. His books included studies of Samuel Pepys, accounts of English eighteenth- and nineteenth-century history, and a life of George V. Whilst his scholarly reputation has declined somewhat since his death, he continues to be read and to be the subject of detailed historical studies. He moved in high government circles, where his works were influential, being the favorite historian of three prime ministers: Winston Churchill, Clement Attlee, and Harold Wilson.

     Bryant's historiography was often based on an English romantic exceptionalism drawn from his nostalgia for an idealized agrarian past. He hated modern commercial and financial capitalism, he emphasized duty over rights, and he equated democracy with the consent of "fools" and "knaves".

     Bryant started work at a school operated by the London County Council, where he developed a strong sense of social justice and became convinced that education would be an effective way of uniting the people. That conviction led him to become a historian. Tall, dark, and handsome, he was popular at the debutante balls he regularly attended, where he often persuaded his dancing partners to help him teach some of the less fortunate children at a children's library he had established in Charles Dickens's old house in Somers Town, London.

     He became a barrister at the Inner Temple in 1923, but left later that year to take the headmaster position of the Cambridge School of Arts, Crafts, and Technology, becoming the youngest headmaster in England. He organized the Cambridge Pageant in 1924 and the Oxford Pageant in 1926. Altogether, he proved remarkably successful in enrolling students, the school growing from three hundred to two thousand students in his three years there.

     During 1926, he married Sylvia Mary Shakerley, daughter of Walter Geoffrey Shakerley, the third Baronet Shakerley, and the following year became a lecturer in history for the Oxford University delegacy for extramural studies, a position he retained until 1936. His marriage was dissolved in 1930. He served as an advisor at the Bonar Law College at Ashridge in Hertfordshire. His first book, The Spirit of Conservatism, appeared in 1929 and was written with his former students in mind.

     List of works

Rupert Buxton. A Memoir (privately printed, Cambridge, 1925)

The Spirit of Conservatism (Methuen & Co., 1929)

King Charles II (Longmans, Green & Co., 1931) - revised (Collins, 1955)

Macaulay (Peter Davies, 1932) - about Thomas Babington Macaulay, reprinted (Collins, 1979)

Life of Samuel Pepys in three volumes:

The Man in the Making (Cambridge University Press, 1933)

The Years of Peril (Cambridge University Press, 1935)

The Saviour of the Navy (Cambridge University Press, 1938)

The Man and the Hour: Studies of Six Great Men of Our Time (Philip Allan, 1934) - Edward VII; Lenin; Briand; Pilsudski; Mussolini; Hitler

The Letters, Speeches and Declarations of King Charles II (editor; Cassell, 1935)

The England of Charles II (Longmans, Green & Co., 1935) - reprinted as Restoration England (Collins, 1960)

Postman's Horn: Anthology of the Letters of Latter Seventeenth Century England (editor; Longmans, 1936) - revised (Van Thal, 1946)

The American Ideal (Longmans, Green & Co., 1936)

George V (Peter Davies, 1936) - George V

Stanley Baldwin: A Tribute (Hamish Hamilton, 1937) - Stanley Baldwin

The Search for Peace (1939), a collection of Neville Chamberlains' speeches up to the end of the Munich Crisis

Unfinished Victory (Macmillan & Co., 1940)

English Saga, 1840–1940 (Collins/Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1940)

The Years of Endurance, 1793–1802 (Collins, 1942)

Dunkirk (A Memorial) (Macmillan, 1943) - pamphlet

Years of Victory, 1802–1812 (Collins, 1944)

The Battle of Britain/The Few (Daily Sketch, 1944) - with Edward Shanks

Historian's Holiday (Dropmore Press, 1946) - limited ed., reprinted (Collins, 1951)

Trafalgar and Alamein (Withy Grove Press, 1948), with Edward Shanks and Field Marshal Montgomery of Alamein

The Summer of Dunkirk/The Great Miracle (Daily Sketch, 1948) - with Edward Shanks

The Age of Elegance, 1812–1822 (Collins, 1950)

The Story of England: Makers of the Realm (Collins, 1953)

The Turn of the Tide 1939–1943 (Collins, 1957) - Alanbrooke Diaries, vol. 1

Triumph in the West 1943–1946 (Collins, 1959) - Alanbrooke Diaries, vol. 2

Liquid History (Curwen Press, 1960) - "Fifty Years of the Port of London Authority"

Jimmy, the Dog of My Life (Lutterworth Press, 1960)

The Age of Chivalry (Collins, 1963)

The Fire and the Rose (Collins, 1965)

Protestant Island (Collins, 1967) - prequel to The Medieval Foundation

The Lion and the Unicorn: A Historian's Testament (Collins, 1969)

The Great Duke; or the Invincible General (Collins, 1971) - biography of the Duke of Wellington

Jackets of Green (Collins, 1972) - study of the Rifle Brigade

A Thousand Years of British Monarchy (Collins, 1975)

Leeds Castle: A Brief History (1980) - Leeds Castle Foundation

The Elizabethan Deliverance (Collins, 1980)

Spirit of England (Collins, 1982)

Set in a Silver Sea: A History of Britain and the British People (Collins, 1984) - vol. 1

Freedom's Own Island: A History of Britain and the British People (Collins, 1986) - vol. 2

Search for Justice: A History of Britain and the British People (Collins, 1990) - vol. 3

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