This beguiling tale of a scandalous ménage à trois among England’s upper classes is a high society love story that combines memoir and biography into a fascinating, heady read in the vein of The Bolter and Portrait of a Marriage.Among the glittering stars of British society, Sofka Zinovieff’s grandparents lived and loved with abandon. Robert Heber-Percy was a dashing young man who would rather have a drink than open a book, so his involvement with Jennifer Fry, a beautiful socialite famous for her style and charm, was not surprising. But by the time Robert met and married Jennifer, he had already been involved with a man—Gerald, Lord Berners—for more than a decade.Stout, eccentric, and significantly older, Gerald was a well-known composer, and at home among scholars. He also owned one of Britain’s loveliest stately homes, Faringdon House in Oxfordshire. The two made an unlikely couple, especially because they lived together at Faringdon House when homosexuality was illegal. And then a pregnant Jennifer moved into Faringdon in 1942, creating a formidable ménage à trois.In this gorgeous, entertaining narrative of bohemian aristocracy illustrated with dozens of photographs, Sofka Zinovieff probes the mysteries of her grandparents and the third man in their marriage. Who was Gerald, and what brought Robert and Jennifer together under his roof? Why did Jennifer marry Robert? Piecing together the complicated reality behind the scandals of revelry and sexuality, she finally allows old ghosts to rest.

MAD BOY, LORD BERNERS, MY GRANDMO

Sofka Zinovieff

Biographies & Memoirs

Vintage

Each book looks at an area of country where many people have left and made their lives elsewhere. Presents accounts of the migrant's experiences drawn from a wide range of primary sources. National Curriculum Key Stage 2-3.

A History of Migration from Greece (Origins)

The Watts Publishing Group

Putney

Literature & Fiction

Literary

Bloomsbury Publishing

The House on Paradise Street

Contemporary

Short Books Ltd

<p>"We gazed transfixed across the small, strangely tropical bay at the bottom of the hill, and the surrounding palm trees and sandy beaches. Beyond the bay was the wide expanse of the Saronic Gulf, with its distant traffic of boats leaving for the islands and returning to the port at Piraeus". This was Sofka Zinovieff's first sight of the view from Eurydice Street. It was so irresistible that she and her husband immediately knew that they would make their home there. Sofka had fallen in love with Greece as a student, but little suspected that years later she would return for good with an expatriate Greek husband and two young daughters. This book is a fresh, funny and inquiring account of her first year as an Athenian. The whole family have to get to grips with their new life and identities: the children start school and tackle a new language, and Sofka's husband, Vassilis, comes home after half a lifetime away. Meanwhile, Sofka resolves to get to know her new city and become a Greek citizen, which turns out to be a process of Byzantine complexity. As the months go by, Sofka's discovers how memories of Athens' past haunt its present in its music, poetry and history. She also learns about the difficult art of catching a taxi, the importance of smoking, the unimportance of time-keeping, and how to get your Christmas piglet cooked at the baker's.</p>

Eurydice Street : A Place in Athens

Community & Culture

Granta Books

In 1907 Princess Sophy ('Sofka') Dolgorouky was born in St Petersburg. Members of the Imperial family had attended her parents' wedding earlier that same year, and the child was born into a privileged world of nurses, private tutors and elegant tea parties. The Russian Revolution caused the princess to flee across Europe to England, but it was the Second World War that left the deepest marks on her adult life. During those years, she left her first husband and lost her second. Later, she was interned in a Nazi prison camp, where she discovered Communism and showed great bravery in defending the rights of the Jewish prisoners.It was her Communism which took her back to the Soviet Union as an improbable tour guide for British workers. And Communism, albeit indirectly, brought her the last love of her life, Jack, a working-class Londoner who had never been abroad. Sofka's colourful life also included a close friendship with Laurence Olivier, innumerable lovers, some serious, some quickly discarded, and an abiding love of reading and especially poetry. This affectionate portrait of the 'red princess' by her granddaughter and namesake uses letters, diaries and interviews to recreate a vanished world and also explore the author's own Russian roots.

Red Princess

Short Books

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Books by Sofka Zinovieff