he became torn between scholarship and the pursuit of literature and, during his long reign as Warden of All Souls, his conservative views made him into a media figure to such an extent that, some twenty years after his retirement, All Souls rarely appears in the press without some mention of John Sparrow." "John Lowe was a close friend of Sparrow's for forty-three years. In 1988 he invited him to be his biographer and gave him the freedom of his large archive of public and private papers." "Sparrow was a homosexual. He never flaunted it but hardly troubled to conceal it. But as Lowe makes clear, it was at the centre of his being, colouring his every thought. This side of his character is confronted, not only through the account of one of his major love affairs, but also in its profound influence on his dealings with people, whether it was his Coldstream Guards platoon guarding Churchill at Chequers, or his colleagues at All Souls. The biography is equally frank about his failure as Warden, his inability to accept the changes which were overtaking Oxford at that time, and the short, distressing spell of drunkenness that followed his retirement. But his marvellous humour and his great gift for friendship largely redeemed his failure."--Jacket.