A Life of H.L.A. Hart: The Nightmare and the Noble Dream

Melbourne University Law Review, April, 2005 by G. Edward White

IV

Any biographer, especially one with access to private papers, encounters the massive detritus of a human life and has to be selective about the data to be emphasised in a narrative of that life. One choice Lacey made was to de-emphasise Hart's years in legal practice in order to concentrate on an exposition and critique of his scholarship. Another was to expose the tensions in his marriage. I have suggested that the first choice raises some difficulties, but one could argue that Hart's professional life was, after all, mainly that of a scholar, and that we should not quibble about Lacey's comparative neglect of Hart's years in practice in light of her comprehensive and illuminating treatment of his work. The second choice, however, seems in need of greater justification.

In her biographer's note, Lacey states that she faced a 'dilemma' about what to do with 'the very personal nature of some of [Hart's] letters and diaries' that Jenifer had made available to her. (39) She concluded that her 'rule of thumb was to use only the personal material which sheds light on the development of his ideas and the course of his career.' (40) Her definition of 'the course of his career', however, is quite broad. She considers that because Hart 'moved seamlessly back and forth in his diaries between personal and professional preoccupations, and sought increasingly to draw links between the two', material 'relating to his feelings about his sexuality and his marriage was essential to any interpretation of him as a whole person.' (41)

Pursuant to this argument, Lacey gives considerable attention to two 'personal preoccupations' of Hart: his feelings about his sexuality and his marriage. One is manifested in an awkward interaction, over the course of the Harts' relationship, between Jenifer's strong sexual appetites (and her relative unconcern with conventional sexual mores) and Hart's concern that his core sexual preferences might be homosexual rather than heterosexual. The other is the cumulative nervous tension that Jenifer's public and private activities engendered in Hart, which only increased as Jenifer moved from the civil service to become a don at Oxford. This tension reached a climax in 1983, when Jenifer was identified as having been a Soviet agent in the 1930s, and Hart, in the wake of countering that charge through a defamation suit, was hospitalised due to a nervous breakdown.

Lacey's use of material relevant to these topics is complicated by her special access to the Hart circle. In her biographical note, Lacey indicates that '[w]ith Jenifer Hart, my relationship has always been warm' and admits to telling her 'that I felt I ought to be writing her life rather than his, since I found her much easier to understand.' (42) Lacey notes that '[o]ne of my greatest challenges was to write a biography of Herbert Hart while doing justice to Jenifer's vivid personality and substantial achievements'. (43) Lacey worked on her book alongside Jenifer, as it were, and three of Jenifer's children read her manuscript in draft. It is unsurprising, then, that Jenifer Hart's personality and career occupies a large portion of A Life of H L A Hart.