Word: longford
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...14th book, The Weaker Vessel, the irony in her own life is apparent. She comes from a long literary tradition. Her mother, Elizabeth, has written biographies of Queen Victoria, Wellington, Byron and Elizabeth II. Her father, Frank Pakenham, was an Oxford don and inherited his title, the Earl of Longford. Fraser's siblings are novelists and poets...
...more congenial firelight of the wedding-eve pyrotechnics at Hyde Park and the 101 celebratory bonfires ignited all over the kingdom, from Scotland and Wales to the Shetlands and the Scillys, even to the embattled north of Ireland. "When politics are in rather a mess," remarks Lady Elizabeth Longford, a historian and biographer, "any institution that is above politics gets an extra dose of glamour...
...available condos can be described as Conspicuous Consumption Baroque. Bathrooms, the size of minigyms, will contain more Carrara marble than Michelangelo ever sculpted. Some are sans bidets because, the Najar brothers claim, Americans would just plant flowers in them. In the Longford, ordinary Los Angeles water flows from the mouths of dolphin-shaped taps that are plated with 24-karat gold. Other homey touches: large foyers for art treasures, crystal chandeliers and private screening rooms-and owners will be able to summon, with the press of a button, pet walkers, masseuses, engineers and secretaries. The 31-story L'Evian...
...scattering of upper-crust physicians and attorneys. "I know my art collection will be there when I come home," says Alice Linet, 49, a Belgian diamond dealer, who will leave her luxurious Beverly Hills home (with pool) for Wilshire House. Mrs. Lee Abrams, 46, who moved to the Longford from a San Fernando Valley estate, agrees: ''I hate a house. The plumbing is always going out, the roof needs repair, and the gardeners are always quitting. This makes me feel elegant. The valet will even put away your groceries...
...grim story has been told before, but never with such sweep and grieving comprehension. Part of the reason is new information, part is the skill and lineage of the author. Thomas Pakenham's mother, the Countess of Longford, is the biographer of Victoria and Wellington. His sister is Antonia Fraser, biographer of Cromwell, Mary Queen of Scots and Charles II. Pakenham was able to prowl the great houses of Britain in search of long-lost letters, papers and diaries, took time to learn Dutch and Afrikaans, and early in his eight years of research recorded the memories...