British diplomat, writer, and critic, born in Teheran, Iran, where his father was British chargé d'affaires. He studied at Oxford, and had a distinguished career as a diplomat, entering the service in 1909, and holding posts in Madrid, Constantinople, Teheran, and Berlin until his resignation in 1929, when he turned to journalism. In 1913 he married Vita Sackville-West, and later became National Labour MP for West Leicester (193545). Highly regarded as a literary critic, he wrote several biographies, including those of Tennyson, Swinburne, and the official biography of George V, as well as books on history, politics, and manners. His diaries were edited by his son Nigel as Diaries and Letters, 193062 (3 vols, 19668).
Sir Harold Nicolson (November 21, 1886 – May 1, 1968) was a British diplomat, author and politician. He was born in Teheran, the younger son of a diplomat father Arthur Nicolson, 1st
Baron Carnock.
Both Nicolson and his wife practiced what today we would call an open marriage.
In 1931, Harold Nicolson joined Sir Oswald Mosley and his recently formed New Party. Nicolson ceased to support Mosley when Mosley formed the British Union of Fascists in 1932. Nicolson entered
the House of Commons as National Labour Party Member of Parliament for Leicester West in the 1935 general election.
After his last attempt to enter parliament, he continued with an extensive social schedule and his program of writing, which included books, a regular weekly piece for The Spectator and book
reviews.
Harold Nicolson's younger son was the publisher and writer Nigel Nicolson, who published works by and about his parents, including Portrait of a Marriage, their correspondence and
Nicolson's diary, which is widely considered one of the preeminent diaries by British authors in the 20th century and an invaluable source on British political history from 1930 through the
1950s, and most especially in the run-up to World War II and during the War. It is perhaps this diary for which Nicholson will most be remembered, as the author was acquaintance, friend or
intimate to such figures as Ramsay MacDonald, David Lloyd George, Anthony Eden and Winston Churchill, along with a great number of literary and artistic figures during the period of its
writing.
Books
Paul Verlaine (1921)
Sweet Waters (1921) novel
Tennyson - Aspects of His Life, Character and Poetry (1923)
Byron: The Last Journey (1924)
Swinburne (1926)
Some People (1927)
The Development of English Biography (Hogarth Press, 1927) Hogarth Lectures on Literature No. 4
Portrait of a Diplomatist (1930) on Sir Arthur Nicholson
Swinburne and Baudelaire (1930) Zaharoff Lecture
People and Things: Wireless Talks (1931)
The Changing World 2 , The New Spirit in Literature (1932)
Peacemaking 1919
(1933)
Public Faces (1933) novel
Curzon: The Last Phase, 1919 – 1925: A Study in Post-War Diplomacy (1934)
Dwight Morrow (1935)
Politics in the Train (1936)
Germany
and the Rhineland, a Record of Addresses Delivered at Meetings Held at Chatham House (1936) with Norman Angell and others
Helen's Tower (1937) biography of Lord Dufferin
Small
Talk (1937)
The Meaning Of Prestige (1937) Rede Lecture
Diplomacy: a Basic Guide to the Conduct of Contemporary Foreign Affairs (1939)
Why Britain is at War (1939)
Marginal Comment (1939)
The Desire to Please: A Story of Hamilton Rowan and the United Irishmen (1943)
England, An Anthology (1944) editor
Friday Mornings 1941-1944
(1944)
Another World Than This (1945) anthology, editor with Vita Sackville-West
The Congress of Vienna: A Study in Allied Unity: 1812-1822 (1946)
The English Sense of Humor: An
Essay (1946)
Tennyson's Two Brothers (1947) Leslie Stephen Lecture
Comments 1944-1948 (1948)
Benjamin Constant (1949)
King George V (1952)
The Evolution of
Diplomatic Method (1954) Chichele Lectures 1953
Good Behaviour: Being A Study Of Certain Types Of Civility (1955)
The English Sense of Humour and other Essays (1956)
Journey
to Java (1957)
Sainte-Beuve (1957)
The Age of Reason (1700-1789) (1960)
The Old Diplomacy and the New (1961) David Davies Memorial Institute of International Studies
Lecture, March 1961
Kings, Courts and Monarchy (1962)
Diaries and Letters (1968), edited by Nigel Nicolson, published by Collins, London
Quotation
Further reading
Nigel Nicolson,
Portrait of a Marriage, (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1973), ISBN 0-297-76645-7. James Lees-Milne,
Harold Nicolson, A Biography, (Chatto & Nigel Nicolson
(ed.),
Vita and Harold. The Letters of Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson 1910-1962 (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1992), ISBN 0-297-81182-7. David Cannadine:
Portrait of More Than a
Marriage: Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West Revisited. From
Aspects of Aristocracy, pp.210-42. Derek Drinkwater,
Sir Harold Nicolson &
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