Clara’s Verdict
‘Chips’ Channon is one of those figures who is difficult to like and impossible to ignore. An American who arrived in Europe during the Great War, married into the Guinness fortune, became a Conservative MP, and spent twenty years moving through the very highest levels of British society — all while keeping a diary of almost pathological thoroughness — he left behind one of the great documents of interwar British life. The previously published edition was heavily abridged and sanitised. This uncut version is an altogether different, more candid, and considerably more embarrassing affair.
Tom Ward’s narration of thirty-nine hours and thirteen minutes is an extraordinary achievement. Rated 4.3 from an impressive 685 Audible UK listeners. Volume 1 of three in the Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries series.
About the Audiobook
Born in Chicago in 1897, Chips Channon settled in England after the First World War and proceeded to make himself indispensable to British society through a combination of charm, wealth, and relentless social ambition. The first volume of his diaries covers 1918 to 1938, encompassing the abdication crisis, the rise of fascism in Europe, the mood in the House of Commons in the years before Munich, and an almost continuous round of parties, country house weekends, and aristocratic weddings.
What makes these diaries literature rather than mere gossip is Channon’s eye for the telling detail and his instinct for drama. His views are frequently reactionary, often embarrassingly racist in the manner of his class and period, and sometimes spectacularly wrong — he was an appeaser and an admirer of elements of the Nazi regime before the war disabused him. But his social observation is acute, his self-awareness occasionally surprising, and his picture of an entire British epoch unforgettable. Published by Penguin Audio, this is the first complete, uncensored edition.
The Narration
Tom Ward has undertaken one of the more demanding narration projects in recent audiobook history. Thirty-nine hours of closely observed social history, with a cast that includes virtually every significant figure in British public life between the wars, requires a range and a stamina that few narrators possess. Ward’s characterisation is precise and his pacing is judicious — he gives the diarist’s voice a quality of slightly arch pleasure that suits Channon’s self-conscious prose without tipping into parody. An exceptional performance.
What Readers Say
Rated 4.3 from 685 listeners. Responses divide predictably between those who find Channon’s views infuriating and those who find them historically fascinating — with considerable overlap between the two camps. One UK reviewer, calling him « fascinatingly informative if infuriating, » notes that his « views are, to say the least, usually reactionary » but emphasises that the diaries provide « a fascinating apercu of the period. » A Canadian listener praises Channon as « a capable writer and assiduous diarist » whose chronicle of social aspiration « discloses much about those times, » identifying the abdication crisis as the great set piece. The general verdict: essential for anyone seriously interested in British history between the wars.
Who Should Listen?
Strongly recommended for listeners with a serious interest in interwar British history, the abdication crisis, or the social and political culture of the British upper classes. This is not light listening — at thirty-nine hours it demands real commitment — but it rewards that commitment generously. Also of interest to those drawn to candid, gossip-rich primary sources and to the question of how power actually operates at close quarters. Find Henry ‘Chips’ Channon: The Diaries (Volume 1) on Audible UK.
