Description
“Despite an age difference of two generations, an easy camaraderie developed between Elwood Payne Bonney and William Henry Jackson in the early 1930s. They met often for lunch or dinner, followed by relaxed conversation in Jackson’s New York City hotel room. They attended lectures at the Explorers Club and visited with mutual acquaintances. After Bonney’s marriage, Jackson was occasionally a weekend houseguest in the Bonney’s New Jersey home. In 1932, Bonney began recording these meetings, often in minute detail, in a diary that he would maintain for ten years.” “An educated man interested in the classics, Bonney may have even patterned his meticulous journal of Jackson’s habits, conversations, and activities after James Boswell’s The Life of Samuel Johnson. Like Boswell, Bonney wrote down every detail he thought pertinent – from the brand of shoes Jackson wore, to the meals the grand old man ordered, to the lilting expression he used when welcoming his guests. Side by side with these minor details, however, Bonney recorded the honors that came to Jackson in his later years, the adulation from others that made Jackson wince, and the reasons for his dissatisfaction with his largely ghost-written autobiography, Time Exposure.” “Nothing escaped this diarist’s notice – for, in the end, this journal is Bonney’s private tribute to a man he regarded highly, and who deeply appreciated their friendship in return.”–BOOK JACKET.
