Indian Diary and Album($22.60Value)

Description

In 1944, in one of its more inspired moments, the British Ministry of Information dispatched Cecil Beaton-- self-dramatizing exquisite, darling of London society, chosen photographer to royalty, and later the world-famous designer of My Fair Lady and Gigi --to the Far East to take pictures of the British Empire and its allies at war. The result was not only a superb collection of photographs but a breathtakingly vivid written portrait of India, Burma, and China at a historic turning-point in their histories. These volumes integrate both elements fully for the first time, offering the complete text of Beaton's narrative and a truly comprehensive selection of over 200 photographs. Beaton was a great observer and, perhaps unexpectedly, a great describer. In remarkably few words, he can make you see, hear, smell, almost touch the dusty Burmese countryside, the shimmering, casual magnificence of a Bombay virtually untouched by war, or the rain-sodden, flea-bitten front lines in a China nearly destroyed by it. He was an acute observer of people, too, and these books offer revealing glimpses of representative wartime figures from Madame Sun Yat-sen and General Claire Chennault to anonymous British soldiers and Chinese peasants. There is mayhem, including an electrifying description of what it's like to live through a plane crash, and mordant social comedy that rivals (and explains much of) The Jewel in the Crown . Perhaps best of all are Beaton's accounts of the two great invariants of modern war--waiting for transport and enduring it--in all their exquisite variety. A magnificent record of some of Beaton's most austere and disciplined photography and a welcome reminder of his almost forgotten literary gifts, these books offer a uniquely real picture of one of the most heroic episodes of recent history.