While other leaders were striving to avoid a European war in 1914, the love-and-liquor besotted 60-year-old British Prime Minister H.H. Asquith was writing 560 love letters (as many as four a day) to comely 26-year-old heiress Venetia Stanley (much to his wife’s displeasure). Luckily for Robert Harris, whose earlier novel “Conclave” formed the basis for the 2025 Academy Award Best Picture nominee, Stanley kept all 560 of them. They form the backbone of his latest historical fiction work, “Precipice,” which reveals how this romantic distraction and Asquith’s resulting inattentiveness at crucial turns may have helped precipitate The Great War and foster the failed Gallipoli Campaign, where 100,000 soldiers died—though a mere fraction of the 20 million lives lost in the total conflict.
One can understand how an attractive young woman can turn a powerful man into an old fool. We’ve seen other examples, both historical and recent. What’s puzzling is what Stanley saw in Asquith, something that the author fails to address. Perhaps it was the proximity to and allure of power (which made Henry Kissinger, for example, sexy in the eyes of some). In his letters, Asquith shared with Stanley top-secret intelligence, an illegal if not treasonable offence, for which he never had to answer.
While with some determination I made it through all 464 pages of “Precipice,” I found myself skimming many of Asquith’s chaste missives. Author Harris also dances around the question of how sexual their relationship was, if at all. A missed opportunity, I think, to exercise some salacious creativity. But perhaps beyond the scope and historical authenticity of this deeply researched novel.
“Precipice” on Amazon: https://shorturl.at/1PyOz
One can understand how an attractive young woman can turn a powerful man into an old fool. We’ve seen other examples, both historical and recent. What’s puzzling is what Stanley saw in Asquith, something that the author fails to address. Perhaps it was the proximity to and allure of power (which made Henry Kissinger, for example, sexy in the eyes of some). In his letters, Asquith shared with Stanley top-secret intelligence, an illegal if not treasonable offence, for which he never had to answer.
While with some determination I made it through all 464 pages of “Precipice,” I found myself skimming many of Asquith’s chaste missives. Author Harris also dances around the question of how sexual their relationship was, if at all. A missed opportunity, I think, to exercise some salacious creativity. But perhaps beyond the scope and historical authenticity of this deeply researched novel.
“Precipice” on Amazon: https://shorturl.at/1PyOz
