Hutchinson Heinemann to release second volume of Channon's diaries

Hutchinson Heinemann has announced that the second volume of the diaries of Henry "Chips" Channon will be published on 9th September 2021.

The first volume of the Conservative MP's diaries, which covered the years 1918–38, was published in March. The second volume continues where the previous one ended, taking the reader from the heady aftermath of the Munich agreement, when the Prime Minister whom Chips so admired was credited with having averted a general European conflagration, through the rapid unravelling of appeasement, and on to the tribulations of the early years of the Second World War.

The publisher said it closes with a moment of hope, as Channon, in recording the fall of Mussolini in July 1943, reflects: “The war must be more than half over.”

A heavily abridged and expurgated one-volume edition of Channon's diaries was published 1967. However, the trustees of the Sir Henry Channon diaries and papers, through literary agent Georgina Capel, have authorised their uncensored publication, edited by Professor Simon Heffer. The third and final volume will appear in 2022.

Reviewers highly praised volume one, with Ben Macintyre in the Times calling Channon “the greatest British diarist of the 20th century”.

Heffer said: “In their heavily redacted form Chips Channon’s diaries were often described as the leading such document of the 20th century. That judgment is even sounder when one reads the complete manuscript. They will be of the greatest value to historians of the period, because they shed additional light on episodes about which we thought we knew everything. And they paint the most vivid picture imaginable of high society in perhaps its most decadent phase. The only difficulty for the editor is deciding what can possibly be left out.”

Nigel Wilcockson, associate publisher at Cornerstone, added: “Whether reassuring Neville Chamberlain as he fights for his political life in 1940 or chatting to Winston Churchill while the two men inspect the bombed out chamber of the House of Commons a few months later, Channon always seems to be there when history is being made. Add to that his vivid descriptions of his encounters with the likes of General de Gaulle, Noël Coward and the 'absolute charmer' Prince Philip, and this second volume constitutes an extraordinary and page-turning achievement.”

The trustees commented: “We are delighted that, more than 60 years after Chips’ death, this priceless historical document can be made available to a wider public; and that the passage of time means that it can be presented with the candour and historical integrity it richly merits.”