Book Review: Anthony Blunt: His Lives

Reviewed By: Harriet Klausner

Anthony Blunt: His Lives     Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Miranda Carter
Class/Genre:   Non-Fiction   Biography
FSG, Dec 2001, $30.00, 590 pp.

This superb biography reveals in depth the many "lives" led by art historian spy Anthony Blunt who worked concurrently for British and Soviet espionage agencies during WW II, but actually betrayed his homeland. Miranda Carter deeply researches her subject going into the notorious Blunt's salad days as a disconsolate, lonely, and abused student. The author follows her subject into Great Depression England when communism turns appealing to the leftist intellects especially homosexuals like Blunt that distrusted and often felt paranoid about English authority. During WW II, Blunt served in British intelligence, enabling him to supply secrets to the Soviets. When his friends defected to the Soviet Union, Blunt and other Cambridge intellectual playmates were investigated. In 1964, he received immunity in exchange for his cooperation. The embarrassed British intelligence community kept his secret for fifteen years until Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher exposed Blunt in 1979.

Miranda Carter provides an incredible insight into the life of one of the strangest enigmatic individuals of the past century. The author paints the complete picture so that fans of true life espionage stories and biographies in general will simultaneously be stunned yet bluntly fascinated by this spy, almost two decades after his death. ANTHONY BLUNT HIS LIVES is an intelligent and engaging true-life account of the infamous art historian counterspy worth reading.

Harriet Klausner

Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Harriet Klausner