Lady Cynthia Asquith

27 September 1887 - 31 March 1960

LCA is chiefly remembered as a diarist of the First World War, who gives a unique picture on its impact, both detailed and profound, on the lives of the English governing class. She also published novels, literary biographies, anthologies, journalism, plays, ghost stories, and works for children.

Milestones

27 September 1887

Cynthia Charteris, later LCA , was born (Heigh Presto as the clock struck four, as her mother wrote in her diary) at Clouds, near East Knoyle in Wiltshire, a family estate.

Beauman, Nicola. Cynthia Asquith. Hamish Hamilton.

By April 1915

Some months into the Great War, LCA agreed with Duff Cooper that they would both keep diaries: he bought her a leather-bound, gilt-edged, lockable volume bearing her initials to contain her diary entries.

Beauman, Nicola. Cynthia Asquith. Hamish Hamilton.

125, 150n4

31 March 1960

LCA died in her seventies, of meningitis, at the Acland Nursing Home in Oxford.

Matthew, Henry Colin Gray et al., editors. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography. http://www.oxforddnb.com/.

By 9 May 1968

LCA 's personal Diaries 1915-1918, kept during the First World War, which had remained unpublished during her lifetime, appeared posthumously in print with a foreword by the novelist L. P. Hartley .

The diaries of Duff Cooper , who embarked on this kind of writing together with LCA but who kept up a detailed diary for far longer, were also published posthumously, a generation after hers.

Fulford, Roger. “Sour Side”. Times Literary Supplement, No. 3454, p. 474.

474

Blain, Virginia et al., editors. The Feminist Companion to Literature in English: Women Writers from the Middle Ages to the Present. Yale University Press; Batsford.

October 1969

LCA 's posthumous biographical study entitled Thomas Hardy at Max Gate was her final work to see print.

Whitaker’s Books in Print. J. Whitaker and Sons.

(1988)

Biography

She had the courtesy title of Lady because of her father's earldom, so that from 1914 onwards it was correct to call her Lady Cynthia. (Before becoming Lady Cynthia, she had been the Honourable or the Hon. Cynthia, because her father was Lord Elcho before becoming the Earl of Wemyss, and this was then the appropriate style for his daughter.)

Courtesy titles are held by the children of high-ranking peers. They are attached to the first name (as in Lady Cynthia), regardless of marital status.