Edith Sitwell

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by Richard Greene


  12 John Lehmann, In My Own Time, 326–7.

  13 SLES, 258.

  14 Eugene Walter (as told to Katherine Clark), Milking the Moon, 108.

  15 ES to PT, 21 March 1944.

  16 ES to PT, 21 April 1943.

  17 ES to PT, 21 March 1944.

  18 SLES, 261.

  19 ES to PT, 7 June 1944.

  20 ES to PT, 24 August 1944.

  21 ES to PT, 14 September 1944.

  22 ES, ‘Holiday’, CP, 308.

  23 Gordon Bottomley to ES, 24 January 1944, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  24 ODNB.

  25 ES to PT, 29 November 1944.

  26 SLES, 269–70.

  27 ES to PT, 28 March 1945.

  28 SLES, 270.

  29 ES to John Crosby, draft, 7 September 1962, Works 266, ES Collection, HRC.

  30 SLES, 175.

  31 Ibid., 270–1.

  32 Ibid., 271–3.

  33 Ibid., 253–4.

  34 Ibid., 274.

  35 ES to Graham Greene, 22 January 1945, private collection of Neil Ritchie.

  36 ES to PT, 25 January 1945.

  37 ES to PT, 16 March 1945.

  38 Ibid.

  39 I am grateful to Chris Hobbs and other local historians for information on this subject.

  40 ES to PT, 26 April 1945.

  41 ES to PT, 4 May 1945.

  42 See John C. Waller, ‘In a Spin: The Mysterious Dancing Epidemic of 1518’, Endeavour.

  43 ES to PT, 11 May 1945.

  44 T. S. Eliot, review of Tarr by Wyndham Lewis, and of The People’s Palace by Sacheverell Sitwell, Egoist 6 (June/July 1918), 84–5.

  45 ES, 10 August 1945.

  46 ES to PT, 21 July 1945.

  47 ES to PT, 3 February 1946.

  48 See notes in Works 79, ES Collection, HRC.

  49 CP, 292.

  50 ES to PT, fragment 1946.

  51 Algernon Charles Swinburne, excerpt from Anactoria, Edith Sitwell’s Anthology (London: Victor Gollancz, 1940), 597.

  52 See The Times, 17, 18, 24 September; 3, 8, 9, 10 October; and 15 December 1945.

  53 Works 77, ES Collection, HRC.

  54 CP, 376.

  55 Lord Clark interview with John Pearson, Sitwell Collection, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

  56 SLES, 280.

  57 ES to PT, 10 August 1945.

  58 CP, 373.

  59 Ibid., 371.

  60 Ibid., 375 and 434n.

  61 Ibid., 376.

  62 SLES, 277–8.

  63 ES to PT, 5 November 1945.

  64 Evelyn Wiel to ES, 23 January 1946, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  65 ES to PT, 26 December 1945.

  66 ES to PT, 3 February 1946.

  67 ES to PT, 20 February 1946.

  68 PT to ES, 30 December 1945.

  69 Works 62, ES Collection, HRC.

  CHAPTER 20: AN OLD MAD FACE

  1 Dylan Thomas, The Collected Letters, ed. Paul Ferris, 652–3.

  2 Geoffrey Grigson interview with John Pearson, Sitwell Collection, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

  3 ES to PT, 12 April 1946.

  4 ES to PT, 16 May 1946.

  5 Ibid.

  6 SLES, 281–6.

  7 Ibid., 287.

  8 ES to PT, 3 November 1947.

  9 Paul West, I, Said the Sparrow, 86.

  10 Paul West, Oxford Days, 15–17.

  11 ES to PT, 2 February 1948.

  12 ES to PT, 26 September 1946.

  13 ES to PT, 5 October 1946.

  14 Radio Times, 29 September 1946; see also http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/thirdprogramme/gallery/gallery.shtml?1

  15 Transcripts of Reed’s broadcasts, misc. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  16 ES, ‘Response to Henry Reed’, Works 340, ES Collection, HRC; I am grateful to Rachel Lawson of the BBC Written Archives Centre for further information.

  17 ES to PT, 25 January 1945.

  18 Geoffrey Grigson, ‘How Much Me Now Your Acrobatics Amaze’, Polemic. An expanded version of the essay may be found in his The Harp of Aeolus, 151–60.

  19 ES to PT, 19 July 1946.

  20 ES to PT, 3 December 1946.

  21 ES to PT, 5 October 1946.

  22 Passport, misc. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  23 ES to PT, 1 March 1947.

  24 ES to PT, 29 January 1947.

  25 PT to ES, 14 April 1947.

  26 ES to PT, 3 May 1947.

  27 Quoted in ES to PT, 26 July 1946.

  28 ES to PT, 9 December 1946.

  29 ES to Sir Kenneth Clark, 3 June 1946, Morgan Library and Museum, New York.

  30 ES to Sir Kenneth Clark, 24 July 1947, Morgan Library and Museum, New York.

  31 SS interview with John Pearson, Sitwell Collection, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

  32 ES to PT, 30 August 1947.

  33 Neil Ritchie owns a copy of Sacheverell Sitwell’s British Architects and Craftsmen, inscribed to Mrs Vincent Astor on 18 December 1945.

  34 ES to PT, 21 May 1948.

  35 Northrop Frye to ES, 12 April 1948, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  36 ES to PT, 26 July 1948.

  37 ES to PT, 27 March 1948.

  38 See Jack Lindsay, ‘The Latest Poems of Edith Sitwell’ in José Garcia Villa (ed.), A Celebration for Edith Sitwell, 44–53.

  39 SLES, 308–9.

  40 Jack Lindsay interview with Victoria Glendinning, Sitwell Collection, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

  41 ES to PT, 15 May 1948.

  42 ES to Tom Clarkson, 25 January 1949, collection of Neil Ritchie.

  43 Alec Guinness, Blessings in Disguise, 151.

  44 ES to Graham Greene, n.d. [1945], Graham Greene Collection, Georgetown University.

  45 ES to DH, 1 June 1948, OS Collection, HRC.

  46 SL, 129.

  47 ES to PT, 21 May 1948.

  48 Peter Alexander, William Plomer, 237–8 and passim; this book is my main source of information on Sitwell’s relations with Plomer and Bowes Lyon. I am also grateful to Professor Alexander for answering other queries by e-mail.

  49 Lilian Bowes Lyon to ES, 12 July 1948, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  50 SL, 154–5.

  51 ES to PT, 20 June 1940; see Pearson, 394–5.

  52 SL, 169.

  53 ES to PT, 19 July 1948.

  54 ES to PT, 29 December 1947.

  55 ES to PT, 16 February 1948.

  56 SL, 159.

  57 PT to ES, 7 January 1948.

  58 ES to PT, 9 May 1948.

  59 Charles Henri Ford, Water from a Bucket, 3–14.

  60 ES to PT, 15 May 1948.

  61 ES to PT, 5 June 1948.

  62 ES to PT, 25 September 1948.

  CHAPTER 21: THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WORLD

  1 Ford, 12.

  2 The account of the initial days of Sitwell’s visit owes a great deal to Tyler, 461–4, and Ford, 14–17.

  3 Tyler, 433 and passim.

  4 Marianne Marusic to Richard Greene, 7 December 2008.

  5 ES to PT, c. 27 October–2 November 1948.

  6 Charles Henri Ford, journal, Ford Papers, 22.3, HRC.

  7 Cecil Beaton told different versions of this story in his interviews with John Pearson and Victoria Glendinning, Sitwell Collection, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

  8 Tyler, 463–4.

  9 Ford, 20–1, 33–4.

  10 Charles Henri Ford, journal, Ford Papers, 22:3, HRC.

  11 PT to ES, 16 November 1948, Berg Collection, NYPL.

  12 Charles Henri Ford, journal, Ford Papers, 22:3, HRC.

  13 ES to PT, 21 November 1948.

  14 ES to PT, 8 December 1948.

  15 Wyndham Lewis, The Letters of Wyndham Lewis, ed. W. K. Rose, 475.

  16 Glenway Wescott, Continual Lessons, ed. Robert Phelps with Jerry Rosco, 217.

  17 Glenway Wescott interview with John Pearson, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

  18 Ford, 19.

  1
9 Francis Steloff, ‘Some Gotham Party Lines’, quoted in Elizabeth Salter, Edith Sitwell, 78; see also W. G. Rogers, Wise Men Fish Here, 224.

  20 ES to Minnie Astor, 21 December 1948, Holland Library, WSU.

  21 ES to PT, 26 December 1948.

  22 ES to Maurice Cranston, 10 January 1949, ES Collection, HRC.

  23 Charles Henri Ford, journal, Ford Papers, 22:4, HRC.

  24 W. G. Rogers, op. cit., 167–8.

  25 Truman Capote to ES, 21 August 1949, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  26 SLES, 318–19; Ford, 27–8; Monroe Wheeler, interview with John Pearson, Sitwell Collection, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

  27 Monroe Wheeler interview with John Pearson, Sitwell Collection, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

  28 Charles Henri Ford, journal, Ford Papers, 22:4, HRC.

  29 Philip Hamburger, ‘Musical Events: Cheers for Sitwell–Walton’, New Yorker, 29 January 1949, 46.

  30 Dorothy Norman, ‘Two Lions Rampant: The Sitwells in the Same Room’, MS, misc. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  31 Dorothy Norman, ‘Two Lions Rampant: The Sitwells in the Same Room’, MS, misc. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  32 See draft of speech, Works 10, ES Collection, HRC.

  33 ES to John Ringling North, draft letter, Works 179, ES Collection, HRC.

  34 Glenway Wescott, op. cit., 216–17.

  35 ES, draft of talk on Whitman and Blake, Works 179, ES Collection, HRC.

  36 Charles Henri Ford, journal, Ford Papers, 22:4, HRC.

  37 Tyler, 464.

  38 ES to PT, 15 March 1949.

  39 PT to ES, 24 March 1949, Berg Collection, NYPL.

  40 ES to PT, 3 April 1949; see earlier drafts of this letter in SLES, 316–19.

  41 ES to PT, 22 April 1949.

  42 SLES, 324.

  43 PT to ES, 14 May 1949, Berg Collection, NYPL.

  44 ES to PT, c. June 1949.

  45 ES to PT, 10 May 1949.

  46 ES to PT, 24 June 1949.

  47 SLES, 320.

  48 Statement of expenses for American tour, October 1948 to March 1949, misc. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  49 SLES, 325.

  50 Ibid., 325; Bradford, 361.

  51 Journal entry, Works 179, ES Collection, HRC. ES kept a journal in the 1950s, but I have not been able to locate the rest of it – she may have destroyed it.

  52 Peter Alexander, Roy Campbell, 173. I am also indebted to Professor Alexander for answering my e-mailed queries.

  53 Quoted in Peter Alexander, op. cit., 206.

  54 ES to Natasha Spender, 11 June 1946. This letter is in the private collection of Lady Spender.

  55 Peter Alexander, op. cit., 143–4, 213–14, and passim.

  56 ES to John Gawsworth (Terence Fytton Armstrong), 5 August 1949, Berg Collection, NYPL.

  57 Peter Alexander, op. cit., 211–15.

  58 ES to PT, 23 September 1949.

  59 Peter Alexander, op. cit., 215.

  60 SLES, 327.

  61 Peter Alexander, op. cit., 215.

  62 Roy Campbell to ES, n.d. [c. 1949], recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  63 ES to PT, 2 October 1949; ES to PT, Wednesday [5 October 1949].

  64 Maillart approached Sitwell through a woman named Irene (possibly the Marchioness of Carisbrooke, a cousin of Sitwell’s on the Denison side), to whom she addressed a letter now in the recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  65 ES to SS, c. December 1949, ES Collection, HRC.

  66 ES to PT, 17 December 1948.

  67 See Daniel Macmillan to ES, 23 June 1950, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  68 Lewis Thompson, ‘Black Angel’, Black Sun, ed. Richard Lannoy, 64. I have drawn biographical information from Lannoy’s introduction, xi–xxi. See ES (ed.), The Atlantic Book of British and American Poetry, 2 vols (Boston: Little, Brown, 1958; London: Victor Gollancz, 1959), 869–73.

  69 Quoted in Andrew Harvey, Foreword, Thompson, Black Sun, ix.

  70 SLES, 331–2.

  71 Ziegler, 322.

  72 SLES, 294.

  73 Ziegler, 320–2.

  74 LHRH 4, 371–90.

  75 Ford, 83–5; the manuscript journal is in the Ford Papers, 24:3, HRC. The details of their visit are drawn from this source.

  76 Lincoln Kirstein to ES, 17 May 1950, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  77 Martin Duberman, The Worlds of Lincoln Kirstein, 482–3.

  78 Tyler, 482.

  79 ES to PT, 22 September 1950.

  80 Ibid.

  CHAPTER 22: FALLEN MAN DREAMS HE IS FALLING UPWARD

  1 Lincoln Kirstein to ES, 27 August 1950, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  2 Glenway Wescott, Continual Lessons, ed. Robert Phelps with Jerry Rosco, 286. See also New York Times, 4 and 26 November 1950.

  3 Alec Guinness to ES, 8 April 1951, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC. Gielgud’s letters may be found in the same file.

  4 Carson McCullers to ES, 26 November 1950, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  5 Carson McCullers to ES, n.d., recip. file, ES Collection. This letter is not attributed to McCullers in the collection, but is certainly written by her.

  6 Lincoln Kirstein interview with John Pearson, Sitwell Collection, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

  7 ES to Jane Clark, 23 April 1951, Morgan Library and Museum, New York.

  8 ES, ‘Younger American Poets’, Sitwell Collection, McFarlin Library, University of Tulsa.

  9 Evelyn Wiel to ES, 29 October 1950, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  10 ES to Dorothy Marshall, 31 January 1951, Holland Library, WSU.

  11 SL, 173.

  12 Ibid., 174.

  13 Kenneth and Miriam Patchen’s letters are in the recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  14 ES to PT, 18 March 1951 and 20 April 1951.

  15 For a discussion of allusions to Marvell in Sitwell’s poetry, see James Brophy, Edith Sitwell, 125–32.

  16 ES to Natasha Spender, 20 May 1951, Berg Collection, NYPL.

  17 SL, 176; The Times, 21 June 1951.

  18 SL, 183.

  19 Gore Vidal, ‘How I Survived the Fifties’, New Yorker, 66.

  20 Salter, 15.

  21 I am grateful to Bruce Hunter for this anecdote.

  22 ODNB; Craggs x.

  23 ES to Peter Pears, 7 August 1951, Britten–Pears Library, Aldeburgh.

  24 ES to DH, 7 October 1951, OS Collection, HRC.

  25 Geoffrey Gorer to ES, 13 November 1951, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  26 SLES, 348–9.

  27 Ibid., 346.

  28 ES to Siegfried Sassoon, 19 and 28 April 1952, Holland Library, WSU.

  29 Humphrey Searle to ES, 17 December 1952, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  30 Humphrey Searle to ES, n.d., recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  31 Humphrey Searle, 1 January 1953, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  32 Geoffrey Gorer to ES, 19 January 1953, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  33 SLES, 355.

  34 Financial papers in misc. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  35 Coutts & Co. to ES, 1 July 1955, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  36 Philip Frere to ES, 17 August 1953, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  37 Evelyn Wiel to ES, 4 February 1953, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  38 David Higham to ES, 17 November 1952, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  39 See Richard Greene (ed.), Graham Greene, 198; and Norman Sherry, The Life of Graham Greene, 2, 437–46.

  40 McCarran form, misc. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  41 SLES, 352.

  42 Ibid., 353.

  43 Draft of ‘Hollywood’, Works 156, ES Collection, HRC.

  44 SLES, 353–4.

  45 Ibid., 379.

  46 ES to Minnie Astor, 29 December 1949, Holland Library, WSU.

  47 Three letters of Rohan’s from late 1949 are in the recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  48 Draft of ‘Hollywood’, Works 156, ES Collection, HRC.
/>   49 Draft of ‘Hollywood’, Works 89, ES Collection, HRC.

  50 Draft of ‘Hollywood’, Works 156, ES Collection, HRC.

  51 Ibid.

  52 TCO, 183.

  53 Mary Fraser to ES, 16 August 1957, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  54 Edward Weeks to ES, 12 June 1953, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC. See also Edward Weeks to A. C. E. Musk (Coutts & Co.), 29 October 1954, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  55 ES to SS, 10 December 1953, ES Collection, HRC.

  56 Andrew Lycett, Dylan Thomas, 369.

  57 See John Malcolm Brinnin, Dylan Thomas in America, 277 ff.

  58 See Paul Ferris, Dylan Thomas, 315–26.

  59 See James Nashold and George Tremlett, The Death of Dylan Thomas.

  60 SLES, 386.

  61 Louis MacNeice to ES, 7 December 1953, ES Collection, HRC.

  62 SL, 187.

  CHAPTER 23: FROST ON THE WINDOW

  1 See, for example, Tijana Stojkovi , ‘Unnoticed in the casual light of day’, 65–7.

  2 SLES, 406.

  3 Ted Hughes to Richard Greene, 8 July 1995.

  4 ES to David Pleydell-Bouverie, 30 January 1954, Morgan Library and Museum, New York.

  5 SLES, 358–9.

  6 Ibid., 360.

  7 Ibid., 362.

  8 Kingsley Amis to ES, 25 June 1954, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  9 SLES, 357–8.

  10 Ibid., 361.

  11 ES, ‘The Night Wind’, CP, 387.

  12 Jackson is quoted in Leo Lerman, The Grand Surprise, ed. Stephen Pascal, 348.

  13 SLES, 363.

  14 ES to Denys Kilham Roberts, 27 June 1954, Holland Library, WSU.

  15 ES to Jane Clark, 26 June 1954, Morgan Library and Museum, New York.

  16 ES to Siegfried Sassoon, 3 May 1955, Holland Library, WSU.

  17 Evelyn Wiel, 8 June 1954, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  18 Philip Frere to ES, 28 March 1955, ES Collection, HRC.

  19 PT to ES, 20 September 1954.

  20 Note in Works 191, ES Collection, HRC.

  21 ES to Jane Clark, 12 May 1950, Morgan Library and Museum, New York.

  22 Anglo-French Literary Services, receipt, 14 June 1951, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  23 SLES, 366.

  24 CP, 424.

  25 ES to SS, 2 October 1954, SS Collection, HRC.

  26 SLES, 368–9.

  27 PT to ES, 14 October 1954.

  28 PT to ES, 22 October 1954.

  29 PT to ES, 6 November 1954 and 1 January 1954.

  30 Edward Weeks to A. C. E. Musk, 29 October 1954, recip. file, ES Collection, HRC.

  31 Richard Eberhart, review of Collected Poems by Edith Sitwell, Poetry, v. 87 (October 1955), 48.

 

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