I'm Not Making This Up, You Know

The Autobiography of the Queen of Musical Parody

by Anna Russell

Edited by Janet Vickers

The Continuum Publishing Company, 1985 [First Edition], ISBN 0826403646, black and white photographic plates, hardcover, dust-jacket

Very Good Condition, minor edge and shelf wear, no inscriptions, dust-jacket shows a little edge and shelf wear with a little rubbing to edges and corners, small tear to top front (see photographs)

"Echoing one of her most celebrated lines, Anna Russell assures us that she's not making this up; and while harbouring some suspicions, we take her word for it, remembering that one of her funniest routines comes straight out of the Encyclopedia Britannica.  
Anna Claudia Russell-Brown was born, as befits a hyphenated name, in genteel circumstances at a privileged time and place (London before the Great War).  She was the "last leaf" of a family that spanned the Empire: Australia, Canada, Hong Kong, "Inja," and of course the south of France.  She had scads of relations, none of whom had issue and all of whom were "dotty", "potty", endearingly eccentric and exceedingly unfecund.  yet all was not beer and skittles.  Raised by nannies (shades of Upstairs/Downstairs) and shunted among relatives ("from Sybaris to Sparta"), Anna felt as though she was being brought up "by a jury that couldn't agree on a verdict".  Then there was a school: a Quaker school, a convent school, a succession of boarding schools (detention camps, Anna calls them) that vie with St. Trinian's for harum-scarum hilarity and Dotheboys Hall for sheer horror; ..."