LIFE OF PRINCE CONSORT

Hokitika Guardian, 24 August 1931, Page 3

LIFE OF PRINCE CONSORT

H'KCTOIi BOLITHO’S NEW BOOK. Early next year, Mr Hector, Bolitho s new life of the Prince Consort is to be published in London, New York and Berlin. The material he has found in Germany will throw a new and rich light’on all the Victorian story, for Mr .Bolitho found, among other papers, ten volumes of letters written by /Prince .Albert to his only brother. The present Duke of Saxe Coburg has given Air Bolitho access to all the archives in the little German Duchy from which the iSax® Coburg family came, to the English throne.

Mr Bolitho was interviewed in Windsor a few days ago and, speaking of his new book he said “I think I have material. which will revolutionise the common opinion of the Prince Consort. 3 believe that he gave England more solidity ’than any other man of his generation and the letters I have found show : that behind the stiff and faintly priggish Prince, there was a man who was almost a saint. - ’

Mr Bolitho has adopted Thuringia as his second home and he has spent a

great deal of the last few years wandering among the Castles which the Prince knew as a child. He said, in tile interview, “My life iii Germany has made me all the more certain that Thuringia is the last stronghold of romance in the world. When machines have killed every atom of beauty out of the life of England and North Germany, this blessed and beautiful Thuringia will live in a dream. I only hope that many other English people will come to love it as 3 do. When I was in New Zealand, I used to dream of a place where I would be able to delve into old papers and rescue stories from the past. . . . T found that dream coming true in Thuringia. I would like to see every other countryman of mine including South Germany in his travel schemes when he comes to the Old World. There he will find the romantic excitement which m slowly fading out of the life of all the rest of Europe.