Selina Hastings, acclaimed biographer of Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford among others, discusses her memoir of her father, The Red Earl: The Extraordinary Life of the 16th Earl of Huntingdon, with her publisher, Robin Baird-Smith at the Bloomsbury Book Club on November 4th.
Escaping the rigidly upper class life that was planned for him, Jack Hastings eloped with a penniless young Italian, a Catholic to boot, and further enraged his family by becoming a painter. He made friends with Charlie Chaplin and Douglas Fairbanks in California. He persuaded the Mexican artist Diego Rivera to take him on as an assistant and for the next four years lived with Rivera and with his wife, Frida Kahlo. Hastings later became a Labour peer in the House of Lords and after the war a member of Attlee’s government. Lady Selina Hastings talks about her father, a fascinating painter and a very unusual aristocrat, at this intimate Bloomsbury Book Club event.
Receive a copy of The Red Earl on publication by booking in advance. Season membership of the Bloomsbury Book Club costs £100. To join please email: bloomsburyinstitute@bloomsbury.com.
Date: Tuesday 4th November Time: 6pm for 6.30pm. Ends 7.30pm Place: Bloomsbury Publishing, 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP Cost: £25 including a hardback book or £10 without the book
“Bloomsbury is an area rich in cultural diversity,” says Christopher Price, from the Bloomsbury branch of lettings agent Edmund Cude. “There are regular events that draw in visitors from both near and far.”