Self Portrait With Friends The Selected Diaries of Cecil Beaton 1926-1974

Published by Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1979, hardcover, illustrated, index, 435 pages, condition: new.

Noted British photographer Cecil Beaton provides insights into his own life and the personalities of the performers, aristocrats, artists, and other famous people he has encountered during his career.

Cecil Beaton was a British fashion, portrait and war photographer, diarist, painter, and interior designer, as well as costume designer and set designer for stage and screen. His accolades include three Academy Awards and four Tony Awards.

Beaton had published his diaries expurgated: The Wandering Years, The Years Between, The Happy Years, The Strenuous Years, the Restless Years and the Parting Years. In 1979 Richard Buckle edited with Cecil excerpts of those diaries into this very interesting name dropping word salad. As I just finished Malice In Wonderland and plan to start Hugo Vickers 1985 biography of Cecil before launching into the two very thick compilations of his original manuscript diaries unexpurgated by Hugo Vickers in the 1990s... I am also watching a lot of videos on Cecil and his friends and started collecting his photographs on Pinterest.