ACTON, HAROLD — The Last Medici

London, Macmillan. 1980. Hardcover with dust jacket, 24.5cm. Book, Acton seems to have rowed in the same team as Norman Douglas, possibly a book about him will be just as readable as this insight into the Medici clan, originally a 1932 issue. Among his contemporaries at Eton were Eric Blair (the writer George Orwell), Cyril Connolly, Robert Byron, Alec Douglas-Home, Ian Fleming, Brian Howard, Oliver Messel, Anthony Powell, Henry Yorke (the novelist Henry Green). Acton's non- historical works include four volumes of poetry, three novels, two novellas, two volumes of short stories, two volumes of autobiography and a memoir of his friend Nancy Mitford, who was his exact contemporary. His historical works include The Last Medici, a study of the later Medici Grand Dukes, and two large volumes on the House of Bourbon, rulers of the Kingdom of Naples in the 18th and earlier 19th century, which together may be said to constitute his magnum opus. 322pp with several illustrated sections, just past the kilo packed to post. Excellent/Excellent.