Table Of ContentOsbert Sitwell, poet, novelist, essayist, grandee,
literacy pugilist, is today best remembered for his epic
autobiography, Left Hand, Righi Hand! In this he
painted a marvellously evocative picture of an age and
a culture that now seem almost entirely vanished. Like
most of the best memoirs, it is largely a work of
ftction; part of the fascination of Philip Ziegler's
biography is the ceaseless struggle to establish at what
point the truth faded into faotasy.
'The Sitwells - Osbert, Edith and Sacheverell -were
the enfanls renibles of the 1920s; outflanked in the
thirties by the politically conscious generation of
Auden, Isherwood and Spender; then again resurgent
after the Second World War, when Osbert's memoirs
achieved phenomenal critical and commercial success
and e and Edith took the United States by storm.
IHe was at the heart of every literary fracas from 19 I 8
until well after 1945. He was a close friend and some
time sparring partner of Eliot, Aldous Huxley, Evelyn
Waugh and Cyril Connolly; and a ferocious enemy of
Sir John Squire, Noel Coward, the Leavises and
Winston Churchill. His love life was turbulent and
caused him constant disquiet. He could be outrageous,
perverse, arrogant, bullying; he could be generous,
loyal, considerate, public-spirited; but he was never
dull.
Meticulously researched and beautifully written,
this. 4f1tertaining biography ~rovides,,some ext~a
ordin.,-Y social insights and a striking overview of
literat,y Britain in the twentieth century, as well as a
moving portrait of a most remarkable writer and
human being.
Osbert Sitwell
By the same author
The Duchess of Dino
Addington
The Black Death
King William N
Melbourne
Diana Cooper
Mountbatten
The Sixth Great Power:
Barings, I762-I929
King Edward VIII
Harold Wilson
London at War
ed. The Diaries of Lord
Louis Mountbatten I920-I922
ed. Personal Diary of Admiral
the Lord Louis Mountbatten
I943-I946
ed. From Shore to Shore:
The Tour Diaries of Earl Mountbatten of
Burma I953-I979
PHILIP ZIEGLER
OSBERT
SITWELL
Chatto & Windus
LONDON
First published 1998
l 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2.
© P. S. & M. C. Ziegler & Co 1998
Philip Ziegler has asserted his right
under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
to be identified as the author of this work
First published in the United Kingdom in 1998 by Chatto & Windus
Random House, 2.0 Vauxhall Bridge Road, London SW1V 2.SA
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2.0 Alfred Street, Milsons Point, Sydney,
New South Wales 2.061, Australia
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Auckland 10, New Zealand
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Random House UK Limited Reg. No. 954009
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
Papers used by Random House UK Limited are natural,
recyclable products made from wood grown in sustainable forests.
The manufacturing processes conform to the environmental
regulations of the country of origin.
Typeset by SX Composing DTP, Rayleigh, Essex
Printed and bound in Great Britain
by Mackays of Chatham PLC
To Diana Baring, who is alas no longer my agent,
and to Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson, who,
for different reasons, is alas no longer my publisher.
They kept the flag of civilised values flying in a world
increasingly falling prey to the barbarian.
Contents
List of Illustrations 1x
Acknowledgements x1
The Eye of Childhood
1 1
2 Educated in the Holidays from Eton 18
3 The Great Free World 33
4 Splendid Soldier Strife 5 2
5 We Are Poets and Shall Tell the Truth 61
6 The Delightful but Deleterious Trio 86
7 Not a Story but a Sketch 115
8 No Love and No Buried Treasure 134
9 Enter a Golden Squirrel 153
10 Phantoms 173
11 Wings to Head and Pen 199
12 He Likes to Write 213
13 WeWant-PEACE! 240
14 Beavering Away 265
15 A Devoted Family 278
16 Anatomy of an Age 300
17 England's Most Celebrated Living Literary Family 320
18 Parkinson's 335
19 A Good Deal of Time in Bed 3 5 3
20 Exit a Rose-Red Cissy 368
21 The Faces that I Love 382
Source Notes 399
Books by Osbert Sitwell 4 3 5
Books about Osbert Sitwell or the Sitwell Family 437
Bibliographical Notes 438
Index 441
List of Illustrations
Between pages I46 and I47
Sir George Sitwell (John Pearson)
Lady Ida (Reresby Sitwell)
Osbert aged four (Reresby Sitwell)
Osbert in 1902 (Reresby Sitwell)
The Sitwell Family by John Singer Sargent (Reresby Sitwell)
The Sitwell Family by Cecil Beaton (Sotheby's)
Renishaw (Reresby Sitwell)
Montegufoni (National Portrait Gallery, London)
Osbert by Nina Hamnett (National Portrait Gallery, London)
Osbert and Sacheverell by Max Beerbohm (Francis Sitwell)
Bust of Osbert by Frank Dobson (Jason and Rhodes Gallery, London)
Wilfred Owen (National Portrait Gallery, London)
Siegfried Sassoon (Reresby Sitwell)
D. H. Lawrence (National Portrait Gallery, London)
William Walton (National Portrait Gallery, London)
Osbert and Edith at Sacheverell's wedding (John Pearson)
Between pages 306 and 307
David Horner (Eton College)
Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell in 1926 (Reresby Sitwell)
Osbert with Christabel Aberconway (The Graphic)
Osbert and David Horner in Peking (Reresby Sitwell)
Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell in 19 3 I (Universal Pictorial Press)
Osbert and Edith at Renishaw (Reresby Sitwell)
The royal poetry reading (Hulton Getty Picture Library)
Osbert at Renishaw in 1949 (Reresby Sitwell)
Osbert in New York (Reresby Sitwell)
lX
