Serious Pleasures. The Life of Stephen Tennant

Philip Hoare.

London. Hamish Hamilton. 1990. First edition. Black cloth-bound hardback, dust jacket. xvi, 464 pages. Several hors-texte black-and-white plates. 240 x 165mm (9½ x 6½"). 1kg. 0241124166. English. Very good in very good dust jacket; light shelf wear to jacket, short 2cm tear along front lower forecorner, yellowing to top and bottom edges, not price-clipped; no inscriptions.

Philip Hoare's definitive biography of Stephen Tennant. The book covers the whole of Tennant's long and eclectic life, including his precocious childhood, the years as a Bright Young Thing and his friendship with Whistler and Beaton, his love affair with Seigfried Sassoon, his writings and art, and his final years spent as a recluse in Wilsford Manor where all manner of stars made the pilgrimage to his bedside.