“something commensurate with the kind of book”: SB to Robert Gottlieb 5.3.65 SB archive HRC.
“an appropriate living wage”: SB to Robert Gottlieb 18.4.65 SB archive HRC.
“This really does distress me”: ibid.
“You say there must be something odd”: Robert Gottlieb to SB, 19.9.65 SB archive HRC.
“it doesn’t really matter very much”: A Compass Error p. 49.
“the great handsome monster”: ibid. p. 36.
“peacefully lying asleep”: ibid. p. 106.
“Let me say at once”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 12.4.68 SB archive HRC.
“don’t let us argue about it”: SB to Robert Gottlieb 12.4.68 SB archive HRC.
“I found that early monologue”: James Stern to SB, 10.12.68 SB archive HRC.
“one colossal error in the construction”: Allanah Harper to SB, 12.1.69 SB archive HRC.
“I was making an experiment”: SB to Alexander Wilson 22.6.92 SB archive HRC.
“beautiful, civilised, clear-eyed”: Daily Mail 14.10.68.
“a work of distinction”: Observer 11.10.68.
“slightly maniacal about explanation”: Sunday Times 13.10.68.
“curiously irrelevant, dated, and mannered”: Times Literary Supplement 24.10.68.
“scholarly (in a modest way)”: SB to Robert Gottlieb 12.4.68 SB archive HRC.
ELEVEN: “FOOD IS PART OF THE LOVE OF LIFE”
“I love food, good food”: Paris Review no. 126 p. 248.
“Dear Mrs. David…I read ‘Point de Venise’ ”: SB to Elizabeth David 9.7.63 Elizabeth David archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“Dear Mrs. Bedford, It isn’t every day”: Elizabeth David to SB 10.7.63 SB archive HRC.
“books, and books and books”: SB to Allanah Harper 2.9.77 SB archive HRC.
“without whose friendly help”: Preface to Venus in the Kitchen by Norman Douglas (Heinemann, 1952).
“v. v. tipsy”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 21.3.65 SB archive HRC.
“oddly enough”: Eda Lord to Barbara Gamow 11.10.66 Gamow archive Library of Congress, Washington.
“If one had to sum up in a few words”: Sunday Times 1.1.67.
“I enjoy talking to you so much”: Elizabeth David to SB 5.10.68 SB archive HRC.
“I was an innocent in those days”: Writing at the Kitchen Table: The Authorized Biography of Elizabeth David by Artemis Cooper (Faber, 2011) p. 229.
“which—even if she began next week”: Ian Parsons to Jan van Loewen 26.10.67 Chatto & Windus archive University of Reading, Special Collections.
“for the biography of one of the world’s”: SB to Robert Gottlieb 25.4.67 SB archive HRC.
“If you had serious objections”: Evelyn Gendel to SB, 23.4.67 SB archive HRC.
“PUBLISHERS ARE PEOPLE TOO!” Robert Gottlieb to SB, 20.4.67 SB archive HRC.
“When I have, DV, ordinary books”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 27.4.67 SB archive HRC.
“if a delivery date were inserted”: Jan van Loewen to Ian Parsons 1.12.67 Chatto & Windus archive University of Reading, Special Collections.
“S&S rather generously let one choose”: SB to Martha Gellhorn 26.8.68 Martha Gellhorn archive HGARC.
“Eda the general handyman”: Provence 1970: M. F. K. Fisher, Julia Child, James Beard and the Reinvention of American Taste by Luke Barr (Clarkson Potter, 2013) p. 105.
“Last year’s depression”: SB to James Stern 16.3.68 James Stern archive, British Library.
“as well and strong this summer”: SB to Martha Gellhorn 26.8.68 Martha Gellhorn archive HGARC.
“unprivate”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 19.10.67 SB archive HRC.
“the sheer drudgery…of sifting, noting”: SB to Martha Gellhorn 26.8.68 Martha Gellhorn archive HGARC.
“The Huxleys most kind and hospitable”: SB to Allanah Harper 16.12.68 SB archive HRC.
“[I] did enjoy Washington”: SB to Martha Gellhorn 0.12.68 Martha Gellhorn archive HGARC.
“is kindness herself”: SB to James Stern 31.12.68 James Stern archive British Library.
“Eda tells me every morning”: SB to Martha Gellhorn 24.1.69 Martha Gellhorn archive HGARC.
“shrivelled with boredom”: SB to James Stern 31.12 68 James Stern archive British Library.
“Smoking is the very devil”: Eda Lord to James Stern 31.12.68 James Stern archive British Library.
“miles and miles of broad sand”: Eda Lord to James Stern 31.12.68 James Stern archive British Library.
“it became almost a mediumistic thing”: SB article Publisher’s Weekly 7.4.69.
“could not have been more agreeable and exciting”: SB to Allanah Harper 6.2.69 SB archive HRC.
“Sybille Bedford…is a hypochondriacal mess”: Christopher Isherwood The Sixties Diaries Vol. Two: 1960–1969 ed. Katherine Bucknell (Chatto & Windus, 2010) p. 541.
“I was a bit overawed”: SB to Allanah Harper 6.2.69 SB archive HRC.
“Life here is really too crass”: SB to Tania Stern 17.2.69 James Stern archive British Library.
“has more than fulfilled all I dreamed”: M. F. K. Fisher to Donald & Eleanor Friede 18.6.60 A Life in Letters: Correspondence, 1929–1991 by M. F. K. Fisher selected and compiled by Norah K. Barr, Marsha Moran, Patrick Moran (Counterpoint, 1998) p. 169.
“a whole human being”: Clifton Fadiman Foreword by Bee Wilson to The Gastronomical Me by M. F. K. Fisher (Daunt Books, 2017), p. x.
“I cannot make her out”: SB to Barbara Gamow 13.3.69 George & Barbara Gamow archive Library of Congress, Washington.
“I feel as if she is nourished on cobwebs”: M. F. K. Fisher to Paul & Julia Child 13.7.69 Julia Child archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“Tom seems very well and contented”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 0.5.69 SB archive HRC.
“We talked and talked”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 18.5.69 SB archive HRC.
“I’ve written to my Swiss bank”: Martha Gellhorn to SB 27.7.69 SB archive HRC.
“This will make the whole difference”: SB to Martha Gellhorn 2.8.70 Martha Gellhorn archive HGARC.
“revising, retyping, cutting”: SB to Martha Gellhorn 2.8.70 Martha Gellhorn archive HGARC.
“I have to begin by transcribing”: SB to Martha Gellhorn 2.8.70 Martha Gellhorn archive HGARC.
“gimcrack modernissimo”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 25.9.70 SB archive HRC.
“I buckled down and finished it”: Eda Lord to Barbara Gamow 20.11.70 George & Barbara Gamow archive Library of Congress, Washington.
“a v. large section of the US Cooking Establishment”: SB to Elizabeth David 23.12.70 Elizabeth David archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“One likes them immensely”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 27.11.67 SB archive HRC.
“professionally she is Trilby to his Svengali”: M. F. K. Fisher to Eda Lord 19.2.75 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“We had a smashing evening”: Julia Child to M. F. K. Fisher 2.6.69 Julia Child Additional Papers, 1890–2004, Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.
“like the dear unflappable, slightly clumsy, St. Bernard”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 3.2.68 SB archive HRC.
“competent, enamoured of French food”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 27.11.67 SB archive HRC.
“He lives so outside the world”: SB diaries 19.1.80 SB archive HRC.
“Dinner was superb”: M. F. K. Fisher to James Beard 10.10.70 Epicurean Delight: the Life and Times of James Beard by Evan Jones (Knopf, 1990) p. 285.
“Eda was gentle and comfortable”: Reflexions by Richard Olney Introduction by Alice Waters (Brick Tower Press, 1999) p. 38.
“I had a couple of evening sessions”: Richard Olney to James Olne
y ibid. p. 127.
“strange, gastronomical capers”: M. F. K. Fisher to Paul & Julia Child 13.7.69 Julia Child archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“I almost never see Eda”: M. F. K. Fisher to Arnold Gingrich 22.11.70 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“bubbly cough”: Julia Child to M. F. K. Fisher 2.6.69 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“Sybille is very bad for Eda”: Reflexions by Richard Olney p. 127.
“from her workroom”: Eda Lord to Richard Olney ibid. p. 133.
“A great nineteenth-century wine”: SB to Raymond Mortimer 9.9.78 Raymond Mortimer archive Princeton University Library.
“had loved wine from childhood”: A Compass Error p. 32.
“I quite seriously think”: SB to James Stern 16.3.68 James Stern archive British Library.
“pretty mediocre”: SB to Martha Gellhorn 5.5.71 Martha Gellhorn archive HGARC.
“This was a great labour”: Harper’s & Queen October 1982.
“siren song”: ibid.
“a simple persuasive plan”: ibid.
“twice each year I work out my needs”: ibid.
“That is what is so fascinating about wine”: Harper’s & Queen 1975.
“We are dismayed about it”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 23.5.71 SB archive HRC.
“Flat pretty awful”: SB to Evelyn Grendel 22.6.71 SB archive HRC.
“with an acacia tree which I adore”: SB to Allanah Harper 11.7.71 SB archive HRC.
“She said 7.30, came at 8.20”: SB to Eda Lord 21.8.71 SB archive HRC.
“Leaving England was a wrench”: SB to James & Tania Stern 12.10.71 James Stern archive British Library.
“almost weekly: another tall building”: SB to Laura Huxley 9.12.72 Laura Huxley archive University of California, Los Angeles.
“the physical ease of reaching them”: ibid.
“I have some ungood news”: Evelyn Gendel to SB, 5.1.71 SB archive HRC.
“I couldn’t be happier”: Evelyn Gendel to SB 27.4.73 ibid.
“What I am trying to do”: SB to James Stern 16.11.71 James Stern archive British Library.
“a sort of breakdown”: SB to Solita Solano 15.11.72 Janet Flanner & Solita Solano archive, Library of Congress, Washington.
“It’s very disagreeable”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 19.12.72 SB archive HRC.
“unhappy, defeatist, tired”: SB to James & Tania Stern 1.10.72 James Stern archive British Library.
“nice to her, niceish”: SB to Tania Stern 2.5.73 James Stern archive British Library.
“I’m becoming more worried about Eda”: SB to Tania Stern 12.1.76 James Stern archive British Library.
“I gather it’s the old old deep-seated depression”: SB to James & Tania Stern 3.10.72 James Stern archive British Library.
“wearing chains all the time”: The Times 17.2.84.
“How Aldous grows”: SB to Laura Huxley 19.12.72 Laura Huxley archive University of California, Los Angeles.
“brave, splendid beast”: Evelyn Gendel to SB 23.2.73 SB archive HRC.
“Just when I thought that all was smooth”: SB to Tania Stern 22.5.73 James Stern archive British Library.
“the eye-strain, the boredom”: SB to James & Tania Stern 9.6.73 James Stern archive British Library.
“so strange, and flat”: SB to Allanah Harper 12.8.73 SB archive HRC.
“The object of this book”: Aldous Huxley Vol. 1 p. xi.
“I never confirmed nor denied”: SB diaries 10.7.85 SB archive HRC.
“To us,” Sybille wrote: Aldous Huxley Vol. 1 p. 132.
“She would leave England the next morning”: ibid. p. 137.
“Cheshire Cat manner”: The Times 1.11.73.
“The book enchanted me”: Raymond Mortimer to SB 18.10.74 SB archive HRC.
“I can’t wait to shout my admiration”: Graham Greene to SB 5.12.73 SB archive HRC.
“a gentle man with steel selfishness”: Martha Gellhorn to SB 1.12.73 SB archive HRC.
“Poor Sybille,” he wrote: Matthew Huxley to Norah Smallwood 9.11.73 Chatto & Windus archive, University of Reading, Special Collections.
“the major work on a major figure”: New Statesman 20.9.74.
“she doesn’t recognise with completely clear eyes”: Financial Times 19.9.74.
“gossipy, flighty, unintellectual”: Nation.
“slapdash prose”: World.
“deficiencies of critical perceptivity”: New York Times Book Review 24.11.74.
“not only unsatisfactory”: Philip Toynbee Observer 26.10.73.
“I feel curiously crushed”: SB to James & Tania Stern 4.11.73 James Stern archive British Library.
“told her if she didn’t stop smoking”: Reflexions by Richard Olney p. 174.
“the last ten days, she was better”: SB to Tania Stern 2.5.73 James Stern archive British Library.
“the monster task”: SB to Tania Stern 4.9.74 ibid.
“After Eda left”: author’s interview with Anne Balfour-Fraser 3.6.10.
“expenses paid by Alfred A. Knopf Inc.”: SB to Tania Stern 4.9.74 James Stern archive British Library.
“all a bit unbelieving”: SB to Allanah Harper 14.12.74 Allanah Harper archive HRC.
“did not enthuse about”: Eda Lord to James & Tania Stern 24.11.74 James Stern archive British Library.
“showing editor supine”: Evelyn Gendel to SB 8.5.74 SB archive HRC.
“I was terribly nervous”: author’s interview with Robert Gottlieb 13.6.11.
“and it was good”: Avid Reader: A Life by Robert Gottlieb p. 48.
“I miss you”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 8.12.74 SB archive HRC.
“Now I shall say”: SB to Eda Lord 8.5.74 SB archive HRC.
“going all over London”: SB to James & Tania Stern 19.5.74 James Stern archive British Library.
“It is in a quiet square”: SB to Laura Huxley 12.1.76 Aldous & Laura Huxley archive University of California, Los Angeles.
“We shall have the maisonette”: SB to Tania Stern 21.1.76 James Stern archive British Library.
“Eda herself is very brave”: SB to Allanah Harper 20.4.76 Allanah Harper archive HRC.
“A terrible thing, of course”: Eda Lord to M. F. K. Fisher 19.5.76 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“I feel jubilant”: Eda Lord to M. F. K. Fisher M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“Physically and spiritually”: SB to M. F. K. Fisher 13.6.76 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“Even after nine days”: Eda Lord to M. F. K. Fisher 15.7.76 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“I had never known Eda”: James Beard to SB, 23.11.76 SB archive HRC.
“eerily more beautiful”: Reflexions by Richard Olney p. 205.
“charming & handsome”: SB to Tania Stern 5.8.76 James Stern archive British Library.
“You MUST NOT always interrupt her”: Martha Gellhorn to SB 10.8.76 SB archive HRC.
“Evelyn has created a festive round”: SB to James Stern 26.8.76 James Stern archive British Library.
“in the glorious unbroken warmth”: ibid.
“years of unreturned hospitality”: ibid.
“like fowl huddling away”: SB to James Stern 3.9.76 James Stern archive British Library.
“It does seem inhuman”: SB to Tania Stern 14.9.76 James Stern archive British Library.
“She seems very ill”: SB to Tania Stern 17.10.76 James Stern archive British Library.
“to see a human being disintegrating”: SB to Allanah Harper 12.10.76 Allanah Har
per archive HRC.
“Eda is not recovering”: SB to M. F. K. Fisher 19.10.76 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“[I] do not hold”: SB to Allanah Harper 17.10.76 Allanah Harper archive HRC.
“I believe, when all is said”: SB to M. F. K. Fisher 22.11.89 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“absence now is almost”: SB to James Stern 5.11.76 James Stern archive British Library.
TWELVE: “NOVELS AMONG OTHER THINGS ARE GALLERIES OF MIRRORS”
“Grief is something so unlike”: SB to Tania Stern 5.1.77 James Stern archive British Library.
“Eda was so well”: SB to Tania Stern 7.1.78 James Stern archive British Library.
“Going back to Les Bastides”: SB to M. F. K. Fisher 10.3.77 M. F. K. Fisher archive Schlesinger Library, Harvard University.
“Here I am in Allanah’s spare room”: SB to James & Tania Stern 9.4.77 James Stern archive British Library.
“The news is unexpectedly good”: SB to Allanah Harper 17.7.77 Allanah Harper archive HRC.
“wanted to say that she has more money”: SB to Evelyn Gendel 21.9.77 SB archive HRC.
“I love that place”: Evelyn Gendel to SB 13.8.77 SB archive HRC.
“interesting, often stimulating”: SB to Allanah Harper 6.7.77 Allanah Harper archive HRC.
“The giving and taking of affection”: ibid.
“en beauté, as easy to talk to as ever”: SB to Alannah Harper 2.9.77 Allanah Harper archive HRC.
“an intellectual cocktail party”: SB to Allanah Harper 17.10.77 Allanah Harper archive HRC.
“Too much standing of course”: SB to Allanah Harper 2.9.77 Allanah Harper archive HRC.
“I spend the day on bed”: Evelyn Gendel to SB 19.7.77 SB archive HRC.
“Only sign is”: Evelyn Gendel to SB 20.8.77 SB archive HRC.
“Really bucked that we’ve agreed”: ibid.
“I have no cancer”: Evelyn Gendel to SB 15.9.77 SB archive HRC.
“Last night, her 3rd day”: SB to Tania Stern 22.9.77 James Stern archive British Library.
“They told me not to come”: SB to Tania Stern 7.1.78 James Stern archive British Library.
Sybille Bedford Page 48
