Controversy
Andrew Roberts claims that Bryant's work on Samuel Pepys gave insufficient credit to the scholarly work of Joseph Robson Tanner (1860–1931). J. H. Plumb gives this account of how G. M. Trevelyan passed Tanner's notes to Bryant:
- ... he found Bryant's book convincing and, equally exciting for Trevelyan, beautifully written. Trevelyan thought Arthur Bryant ideal for the job (he quickly accepted the task) and the notes were handed over. The notes reached 1689 and so did Bryant's biography; the last decade of Pepys's life went unrecorded.
Roberts also claimed that Bryant remained in indirect contact with the Nazis in early 1940, after the outbreak of World War II, and that these ties had been requested by the Foreign Secretary.
Although professionals historians were frequently negative about his best-sellers, Bryant's histories were explicitly praised by prime ministers Baldwin, Chamberlain, Churchill, Attlee, Macmillan, Wilson, Callaghan and Thatcher.
Read more about this topic: Arthur Bryant
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