What do you make of an autobiography that goes out of its way to describe how the subject, as a toddler, liked to masturbate his nanny, while omitting every mention of the subject's second wife and mother of two (or three?) of his children? It's essential to read the preface, in which Taylor explains that he "tells all" about people in his life who were dead when he wrote the book, but that those then living were ignored for fear of legal action. Time and again Taylor skewers someone (like Malcolm Muggeridge or Louis Namier) and then remarks that his victim was one of his closest friends whom he misses terribly. The number of grammatical and typographical errors forces me to revise my estimation of the quality of Hamish Hamilton and its American counterpart Atheneum, which apparently simply reprinted the British edition. ( )

Taylor admits that he excludes any reference to his second marriage (at the request of that spouse). This is a regretable, albeit understandable, omission. ( )

Taylor is always on the level. A first rate historian looking at his own life, what could be better? ( )