¹ Following his divorce in 1954, Rear Admiral Clarence (‘Johnnie’) Howard-Johnston (1903–96), James’s father, had raised legal objections to James’s possession of a passport, in an attempt to prevent him from travelling abroad with his stepfather.

² Published in 1933. The first chapter poses a provocative question: ‘This barbaric medley of bombast and ribaldry, of blood and melodrama—is this really the top of human achievement, the noblest memorial, as we are told, that our race can leave behind it of our existence on this planet?’

³ John Russell (1919–2008), then a Sunday Times book reviewer; later art critic for the New York Times.

¹ Robert Gathorne-Hardy (1902–73), bibliographer, botanist, and Smith’s former secretary-companion, wrote Recollections of Logan Pearsall Smith (1949).

² Dorothy du Breuil de St Germain (née Baird; 1882–1971) was Admiral Howard-Johnston’s rich mother, a clever but uneducated woman, who lived most of her life in France.