A sparkling review by Neal Ascherson of Adam Sisman’s biography of the British historian Hugh Trevor-Roper in the London Review of Books.

“In the 1950s,” Ascherson writes, “there still existed in Britain a few fairylands of ancient privilege and exclusiveness, almost immune to social change, innocently convinced of their own superiority. One of these was the remnant of the old territorial aristocracy, the upper class which had been inconvenienced by austerity and the postwar lack of servants but which still held on to its country seats and its influence. Another was the world of the two ‘historic’ English universities – the ‘top’ colleges of Oxford in particular.”

Trevor-Roper was captured by the second and married into the first.

“He married Lady Alexandra Haig, daughter of the field-marshal. Tall and commanding, a real-life ‘Mrs Exeter’, she was miserably married to an admiral when she and Trevor-Roper fell in love. Their letters survive, and are very touching. It was a strange match – a sardonic bachelor don and an effusive but conventional aristocrat. They could madden each other, but the passionate bond between them was tough enough to stand her extravagance, his reluctance to show emotion and the sniggers of camp Oxford. Xandra was perilously unselfconscious. When two guests said that they had spent the previous night in Birmingham, she responded: ‘Birmingham? Whose place is that?’”

Read Neal Ascherson's review here: