Astor's College Diary
A youthful Waldorf Astor (future Viscount Astor) down to his last two pounds!
Library Associate Walter G.
Von Schmidt (C'67) recently provided funds for the purchase of a delightful
diary kept by Waldorf Astor (1879-1952) from May to July 1901.
This was before his marriage to Nancy Langhorne, before his proprietorship
of the Observer, before his grand title, and before the gathering of "the
set" to his estate, Cliveden. The diary was written when he was simply
a carefree undergraduate at New College Oxford, besotted with his polo
horses, concerned about his indebtedness, and reporting on the personalities
and activities of college and family life. It is a charming journal and
a welcome addition to the library's related holdings in Special Collections:
extensive research files about Astor's wife, Nancy Astor, in the papers
of her biographer, Christopher Sykes.