Those Regal Dons

Abstract

The author describes this book as 'not for the experts'. Its list of contents is certainly idiosyncratic, ranging from important topics like 'The dons create an intellectual aristocracy' to whole chapters, sometimes reproduced from previously published work, on minor characters such as Maurice Bowra, or the former, egregious Warden of All Souls, John Sparrow. Yet anyone interested in trying to understand the grip held by Oxford and Cambridge universities on British cultural life over the years could still hardly fail to learn something from these pages (they contain virtually no discussion of dons anywhere else in Great Britain). Formerly Provost of King's College, Cambridge, Annan who died in February, 2000 was a notable exemplar of what he was writing about. In style, use of a wide range of references, occasional passages of gossip and unexpected bits and pieces of social history, he remains very much the Oxbridge don relaxing as if after a good meal in companionable surroundings. In this book, he produces a seemingly effortless mish-mash of reminiscence, anecdote and analysis, larded with the odd, personal dig at old academic adversaries and generous, though not uncritical, praise of former friends and colleagues. As in all his writing, and in his many distinguished contributions to public life, the tone urbane, establishment and elitist is also wise, humane and compassionate. There is, too, an