Christopher Isherwood Diaries, Signed by Don Bachardy
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[Signed by Don Bachardy] Bucknell, Katherine (ed.). Christopher Isherwood Diaries, Volume One, 1939-1960. First Edition. 1996. Book and dust jacket are both in very good condition. Book is signed by Bachardy, Isherwood’s longtime partner and literary executor, “To Shawn, It was all my idea to publish this book, Don Bachardy, 5 March 97.”
As Gavin Lambert correctly predicted, Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novella A Single Man would eventually rival in importance his 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin. That came to pass with Tom Ford’s 2009 film adaptation A Single Man. The novella was based upon Isherwood’s fear of losing the love of his life, Don Bachardy—which quite improbably persevered, despite the thirty-year age difference. These diaries cover the early years they were together and their life among the glitter-and-literati. It, however, is not only their story. Isherwood was invited everywhere, and this witty and at times scathing diary covers those the New York Times referred to as “the famous, the clever, the neurotic, the unhappy, and the sinful.” With a thirty-page glossary of names, the book is a Who’s Who of midcentury Los Angeles, New York, and London.
“Don is away most days, at his studio, drawing. On the whole, we get along very happily. I hope he is happy. At least he is fairly free—about as free as you can be and live with another person. I think of him constantly with anxiety and love.”
--Christopher Isherwood, July 1959
As Gavin Lambert correctly predicted, Christopher Isherwood’s 1964 novella A Single Man would eventually rival in importance his 1939 novel Goodbye to Berlin. That came to pass with Tom Ford’s 2009 film adaptation A Single Man. The novella was based upon Isherwood’s fear of losing the love of his life, Don Bachardy—which quite improbably persevered, despite the thirty-year age difference. These diaries cover the early years they were together and their life among the glitter-and-literati. It, however, is not only their story. Isherwood was invited everywhere, and this witty and at times scathing diary covers those the New York Times referred to as “the famous, the clever, the neurotic, the unhappy, and the sinful.” With a thirty-page glossary of names, the book is a Who’s Who of midcentury Los Angeles, New York, and London.
“Don is away most days, at his studio, drawing. On the whole, we get along very happily. I hope he is happy. At least he is fairly free—about as free as you can be and live with another person. I think of him constantly with anxiety and love.”
--Christopher Isherwood, July 1959
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