History in the Making

Settling down didn’t come naturally to Simon Sebag Montefiore, the English banking scion with a playboy reputation who gave up finance for war reporting. Then he met the woman he knew he couldn’t let slip away, and started producing a series of acclaimed histories. Our correspondent drops in on the toast of London as he is fêted for his latest prize-winning book, Young Stalin.

On a rainy Monday evening in London last May, several hundred royals, politicians, socialites, journalists, intellectuals, and leading businessmen gathered inside the Bond Street jewelry store Asprey to toast the U.K. launch of Young Stalin, a biography of the early years of the Soviet dictator, by the prize-winning English historian Simon Sebag Montefiore. The book went on to become a best-seller in the U.K., winning the prestigious Costa award for biography this month. Miramax and Ruby Films, in a deal with Film4, have bought the film rights and signed John Hodge, the screenwriter of Trainspotting, to write the script. The book was published in October in the U.S.

Vanity Fair, VIcky Ward, 22 January 2008

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