The Magic Key to Charm

The Magic Key to Charm

by Joanna Lumley (Introduction), Eileen Ascroft (Author)

Synopsis

You may not be beautiful, clever and rich, buy you can still change your life by using the long-lost art of charm. This book holds the secrets to serenity and elegance. Miss Ascroft will teach you: how to banish graceless habits; how to dress to compliment your personality type; how to run for the bus like a young gazelle; how to make friends and be the perfect hostess; how to appear well-educated and well-read; and how to decorate your home to suit your complexion. Her fourteen charm lessons build up a whole way of life for you so that you may become more attractive, more desirable, and at the same time a more complete and contented person. Her advice is proffered in a delightful fashion, accompanied by exquisite photographs, and no woman who reads this book can fail to gain something from its pages.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 144
Edition: 1st Edition
Publisher: Vintage
Published: 01 Nov 2007

ISBN 10: 0099518236
ISBN 13: 9780099518235
Book Overview: A lost gem discovered in the archives, The Magic Key to Charm is both a nostalgic, beautifully written read and also contains much timelessly useful information ranging from beauty and fashion tips and advice on entertaining, to how to run for the bus gracefully and how to decorate your house to best suit your complexion.

Author Bio
Eileen Ascroft was born in 1914 in Reading. first husband was celebrated film-maker, Alexander Mackendrick and they had one son. She spent a lifetime in journalism including a period at the Daily Mirror where she met her second husband, Hugh Cudlipp. They married in 1945. In her book about Cudlipp, Newspapermen, Ruth Dudley Edwards describes Eileen as 'blonde, talented and ambitious'. After being sacked from the MIrror for using the Director's office door as a dartboard during a party she went on to start the women's page at the Evening Standard and she and Hugh became the most powerful couple on Fleet Street. In 1959 she gave up her career as a regular writer in the press to assume responsibility for the promotion and control of the large magazine empire of the Mirror Group. Interestingly, for a successful journalist carving out a glittering career for herself in a traditionally masculine industry Eileen's book, The Magic Key to Charm, is a tutorial in all the traditional feminine virtues. Her obituary in the Times also stated that 'Another side of her talents was seen as navigator of her husband's motor-cruiser in Cross-Channel expeditions. She could also pilot an aeroplane, having learnt to do so in an idle spell in Australia.' The Magic Key to Charm was published in 1938 and was made up of a collection of her immensely popular columns in the Mirror, 'Charm School'. Tragically, in 1962, Eileen Ascroft died of an overdose of sleeping pills.