Harold Acton — English Historian born on July 05, 1904, died on December 29, 1994

Sir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton CBE was a British writer, scholar, and dilettante. Born at Villa La Pietra, near Florence, Italy, Acton's father was a successful art collector and dealer, and his prominent Anglo-Italian family included the historian Lord Acton, and, more distantly, Sir John Acton, Commodore and prime minister of Naples under Ferdinand IV... (wikipedia)

The biographies and autobiographies are on the whole more impressive than the fiction of the last two decades, but the freakish best sellers among them are least likely to withstand the test of time.
So often is the virgin sheet of paper more real than what one has to say, and so often one regrets having marred it.