Published in 1942 by BT Batsford Ltd, The Last of Uptake does not take the knee to wartime economies.
It is hardback and beautifully illustrated by Rex Whistler. Two years later he was killed in action serving in the Welsh Guards after the Normandy landings. It is as much Rex’s book as Simon Harcourt-Smith’s. SH-S was a friend of James Lees-Milne, an author and member of Brooks’s. He was a dilettanti, forgotten (I think) until Slightly Foxed reviewed Uptake in their winter issue.
The verso page is a spoiler but there’s not much plot. It’s a whimsical description of a fantastical house, its dysfunctional staff and its two châtelaines. It didn’t hook me which may explain why it’s out of print. Some of Rex’s illustrations are redolent of Chiswick House, although he spent more time at Wilton staying with his friend Edith Olivier, and they are charming.
“Age might be a telescope that foreshortened the years and brought everything over sixty into one grey regiment; but this was too much. “That will do, Hake, that will do.” Hake began, she noticed with pleasure, to tremble under her gaze. “By-the-by, Hake, I’ve been very put out lately at the way the plate is being neglected; the other day when the Bishop and Lady Conchwater were to dinner I was mortified, yes, mortified, by the state of the Trafalgar épergne.” That, she reflected with relish, as she watched Hake drag himself off, that should keep him in his place for a long time.” (The Last of Uptake)