If Love Were All...: The Story of Frances Stevenson and David Lloyd George

Description

An extraordinary drama of passion and sacrifice at the very heart of the British government, as told by one of the great political biographers of our time. In the summer of 1911 David Lloyd George, then Chancellor of the Exchequer, hired a young schoolteacher called Frances Stevenson to tutor his daughter in the summer holidays. He was forty-eight, and married with four children. She was twenty-two, highly intelligent as well as very attractive, and Lloyd George soon began to employ her as his secretary. At the beginning of 1913 they became lovers, on terms spelt out by Lloyd George with ruthless clarity. Their secret relationship was to last for thirty years until his wife's death finally allowed Lloyd George to marry her in 1943. Combining sex, romance, family feuds and high politics- based on letters, diaries and a vast range of material, published and unpublished - If Love Were All... is the first detailed study of this extraordinary relationship, one that was known about by everyone in politics but never revealed in the press, and the strains that it placed on both parties.

John Campbell is recognised as one of Britain's leading political biographers. In addition to Edward Heath, which won the NCR Award in 1994, and his highly praised two-volume biography of Margaret Thatcher (2000 and 2003), his subjects have included Lloyd George (1977), F.E. Smith, Lord Birkenhead (1983), Roy Jenkins (1983) and Aneurin Bevan (1986). His most recent book was Pistols at Dawn. He is currently writing the authorised biography of Roy Jenkins.

Fascinating... John Campbell has an extraordinary story to tell and he tells it with great skill and authority... Gripping -- Jane Ridley * Literary Review * Campbell's pacily written book is tantalising. It is the sheer quantity of material, with hundreds of letters and diary entries comprehensively transcribed, that makes this rather prurient volume possible -- Chris Bryant * The Independent * Elegant... [Campbell] makes an excellent fist of it, using innumerable letters and diaries to produce an engrossing, judicious read -- Dominic Sandbrook * Sunday Times * A book that is by turns compulsively readable and deeply enlightening about the character of one of our greatest Prime Ministers * Independent on Sunday * Judicious, workmanlike and thorough -- Hilary Spurling * Observer *