Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

by Christopher Isherwood

  1956 January, Isherwood and Bachardy arrive in London; January 30–February 6, Isherwood stays with his mother and brother at Wyberslegh and sees Marple Hall for the last time (it will be demolished in 1959); February 12, he decides to call the new novel The Lost; February 24, Isherwood takes mescaline; March 6, Isherwood begins writing The Lost; March 11, Isherwood and Bachardy leave England for New York; March 22, they fly back to California and move into 322 Rustic Road (Michael Barrie’s house); April 1, Isherwood again begins work on his novel and starts reading background material for his biography of Ramakrishna; during April, they buy 434 Sycamore Road from Hal Greene; April 25, Bachardy is diagnosed with hepatitis and hospitalized; April 30–May 1, Isherwood moves them into their new house; May 10, Bachardy registers again at UCLA; June 1–9, Isherwood is hospitalized with hepatitis; July 2, Bachardy enrolls at the Chouinard Art Institute; July 26, Egyptian president Nasser nationalizes Suez Canal Company, triggering Suez crisis; August 26-September 24, Isherwood and Bachardy drive to San Francisco; September 24, Isherwood begins work on Jean-Christophe for Jerry Wald at Fox; October 10, Isherwood finishes treatment for Jean-Christophe; October 29, Israel invades Egypt; October 31, Britain and France bomb Egyptian airfields; November 22, Isherwood finishes a rough draft of the new novel, now called The Forgotten; he spends Christmas and New Year in New York with Bachardy.

  1957 January 3, Isherwood returns to Los Angeles with Bachardy and continues work on Jean-Christophe; January 11, Edward Hooker dies; February 12, Isherwood discovers lump on side of his belly; February 15, the tumor is successfully removed and proves benign, but ill-health and depression persist for many months; March 15, Isherwood commits to a new U.S. publisher, Simon and Schuster; April, he prepares an introduction for a new edition of All the Conspirators, to be published in the U.K.; April 24, he decides to call the new novel Forgotten; June 7, Fox job on Jean-Christophe finishes; June 13, Bachardy travels to New York alone, returning June 30; early July, Isherwood and Gavin Lambert begin television project for Hermione Gingold, eventually titled Emily Ermingarde; July 19, Isherwood and Bachardy leave for a weekend in Santa Fe and see The Rake’s Progress and I Am a Camera; August 15, Jean-Christophe is shelved by Fox; September, Isherwood begins to make better progress with his novel, now in its third draft; October 8, Isherwood and Bachardy begin a round-the-world trip, via Japan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Bali, Bangkok, and Angkor; November 30, they fly to Calcutta; December 9, they continue on to London; December 19, John van Druten dies.

  1958 January 12, Isherwood and Bachardy fly from London to New York; January 30, they return to Los Angeles; February 2, Bachardy returns to the Chouinard Art Institute; February 11, Isherwood gets back to work on his novel and on the Ramakrishna biography; February 17, Isherwood takes mescaline again; February 25, Bachardy begins taking painting classes from Vernon Old; mid-March, Isherwood begins work on Mary Magdalene for David Selznick, until late June; June 17, Bachardy, leaves for Louisiana and, on June 21, New York, returning June 29; July 5, Isherwood completes another new foreword for a U.S. edition of All the Conspirators; August 22, he jettisons opening chapters of Ramakrishna biography; August 24–30, visits San Francisco with Bachardy; October 10, Selznick hires Eddie Anhalt on Mary Magdalene; October, Isherwood and Bachardy begin writing a play, The Monsters; during the autumn, Isherwood and Lambert begin revising The Vacant Room; November 25, Isherwood has car accident.

  1959 Mid-January, Isherwood and Bachardy complete The Monsters; January 29, they travel to New York, and on February 7 to Philadelphia, returning February 16 to Los Angeles; March 7-April 13, Isherwood writes “Mr. Lancaster,” the first part of the final draft of his novel; March 20, he signs on to teach at L.A. State College; April 18–23, travels to New York alone to discuss musical version of his Berlin writings with Auden; also in April, the first installment of Ramakrishna and His Disciples appears in the March/April issue of the Vedanta Society magazine and eleven Bachardy drawings are included in the Chouinard exhibition; May 1, Bachardy takes first job as professional artist for the May Company; Isherwood begins writing “Ambrose,” the second part of his novel; May 18, Bachardy’s twenty-fifth birthday; June, Isherwood begins “Afterwards,” a homosexual short story; June 9, Bachardy is laid off from the May Company; mid-June, Isherwood and Bachardy undertake to buy 145 Adelaide Drive; July 7, Bachardy begins working at the studio loaned to him by Paul Millard; July 17, Isherwood and Lambert complete revision of The Vacant Room; July 31, Isherwood finishes “Afterwards”; August 18, Isherwood and Bachardy travel to New York and then England; August 25, Isherwood visits Wyberslegh and sees his mother for the last time; September 1, Isherwood and Bachardy go to the Villa Mauresque, Maugham’s house in France; early September, they return to New York; Isherwood visits Gore Vidal on the Hudson; September 9, Isherwood and Bachardy return to Santa Monica; September 22, Isherwood begins teaching at L.A. State College; September 30, Isherwood and Bachardy move to 145 Adelaide Drive; October, “Mr. Lancaster” appears in The London Magazine; October 16, Bachardy begins work at the Broadway Department Store; October 25, Bachardy draws hats for Charles LeMaire.

  1960 February 9, start of Isherwood’s second semester at L.A. State; February 14, decides to call his novel The Others; L.A. State mounts exhibition on Isherwood; March 11, Isherwood finishes rough draft of “Ambrose” and March 21, completes revision; he begins working with Charles Laughton on a play about Socrates; April 18, Isherwood starts writing part three of his novel; May 19, finishes rough draft of part three, which he is now calling, on its own, “The Others,” but will soon call “Waldemar”; May 25, accepts job at University of California at Santa Barbara (UCSB) for the following autumn; June 9, finishes revisions to “Waldemar”; June 10, begins writing “Paul,” the final part of his novel; June 12, plans to title the novel The Lost; June 15, Kathleen Isherwood dies; August 18, Laughton has gall bladder operation; August 19, Isherwood completes rough draft of “Paul”; August 26, begins drafting frame for novel, turns fifty-six, and completes his last handwritten diary; August 27, Isherwood begins typing his diary; September 22, begins teaching at UCSB; September 27–November 4, Bachardy goes to New York to supervise framing of his drawings of the cast of A Taste of Honey; November 29, Isherwood completes revisions on “Waldemar”; December 7, he finally chooses the title, Down There on a Visit; December 23, Russell McKinnon agrees to sponsor Bachardy to study art at the Slade in London; also in 1960, Great English Short Stories is published.

  1961 January 23, Bachardy leaves for London and the Slade, travelling via New York; April 6, Isherwood joins Bachardy in London; Isherwood works with Auden on Berlin musical, but they abandon it when Auden leaves London in mid-July; Isherwood revises Down There on a Visit for publication; July, he sees Heinz Neddermeyer and his wife Gerda in London; July 24–26, Isherwood visits his brother Richard at Wyberslegh; September 6–16, Isherwood and Bachardy travel to France to stay with Tony Richardson and afterwards with Maugham; October 2, Bachardy’s first show opens at the Redfern Gallery, preceded by publication of his drawings in Queen; October 11, another brief trip to Wyberslegh; October 15, Isherwood returns to Los Angeles alone; December 11–12, he travels to New York to meet Bachardy.

  1962 January 2, Bachardy’s first New York show opens at the Sagittarius Gallery and he sells just over half the drawings; the relationship between Isherwood and Bachardy has become strained and a crisis air enters; January 25, Isherwood returns alone to Santa Monica; January 28, he begins teaching again at L.A. State; he plans a new novel, The English Woman; February 17, Bachardy returns; early March, Down There on a Visit published by Methuen in U.K. and by Isherwood’s new publisher, Simon and Schuster in U.S.; Isherwood’s UCSB lectures are on the radio; Isherwood and Bachardy begin building a studio for Bachardy; Isherwood rereads Mrs. Dalloway; September, Bachardy has a Los Angeles show; Isherwood’s novel, The English Woman begins to evolve into A Single Man; October 22–November 20, U.S. naval blockade of Cuba (Cuban missile crisis); December 18, Laughto
n dies.

  1963 January, Bachardy has Santa Barbara show; during the winter and early spring, Bachardy decides he wants to live alone; August, Isherwood has another car accident; October, Isherwood finishes draft of Ramakrishna and His Disciples; October 21, Isherwood sends final draft of A Single Man to both his U.S. and U.K. publishers; November 22, Aldous Huxley dies (and John F. Kennedy); December, Isherwood travels via Japan to India with Swami Prabhavananda, and thinks for the first time of writing A Meeting by the River.

  1964 January 6, Prema and Arup take sannyas at Belur Math; afterwards, Isherwood returns from India via Rome and New York; he begins final draft of Ramakrishna and His Disciples; February, begins gathering material for Exhumations; March, begins working on The Loved One with Terry Southern; meets David Hockney; during the summer, Bachardy travels to North Africa, Europe, and London; July-September, Isherwood works on screenplay of Reflections in a Golden Eye; A Single Man published in the U.S. by Simon and Schuster and, on September 10, in U.K. by Methuen; September–December, Isherwood works on screenplay of The Sailor from Gibraltar; October 15, Bachardy leaves for New York where he has another show and returns in December.

  1965 January 6, Bachardy leaves for a further long spell in New York; Isherwood finishes The Sailor from Gibraltar and Exhumations; January 26–February 7, visits Bachardy; early February, begins as Regent’s Professor at UCLA; spring, begins writing A Meeting by the River; April 3–May 20, Bachardy returns to Santa Monica; April 8, Ramakrishna and His Disciples published by Methuen and appears in the U.S. during the summer; June 21, Isherwood completes rough draft of A Meeting by the River; July 1, Bachardy returns again from New York; July 22, David Selznick dies; October, Isherwood completes second draft of A Meeting by the River; November 1, he begins Hero-Father, Demon-Mother (Kathleen and Frank); December 16, Somerset Maugham dies.

  1966 January, Bachardy has another L.A. show; February 15, Bachardy leaves for New York; spring, Isherwood is visiting professor at UCLA; Gerald Heard has the first of many strokes; Exhumations published in U.S. and U.K.; April 24, Bachardy returns; May 31, Isherwood completes third draft of A Meeting by the River; July, he agrees to work on Silent Night with Danny Mann for ABC television and travels with Mann to Austria in September for filming; October, Isherwood visits England and stays with his brother at Wyberslegh where he reads his father’s letters; stays with the Spenders in London; sees Forster; November, he returns to California; also in November, Cabaret—Fred Ebb and John Kander’s stage musical based on I Am a Camera—opens in New York, directed by Hal Prince and starring Joel Grey, Lotte Lenya, and Jill Haworth.

  1967 January, Isherwood begins working more earnestly on the book which eventually will be called Kathleen and Frank; spring, he corrects proofs of A Meeting by the River which is published in April in the U.S. and in June in the U.K.; May, returns to England to look at family papers at Wyberslegh for Kathleen and Frank; June, returns to California and continues working on family diaries and letters; also in 1967, Isherwood works with James Bridges on a play of A Meeting by the River.

  1968 Isherwood adapts Bernard Shaw’s story The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God for the stage, and also adapts Wedekind’s Earth Spirit and Pandora’s Box; Bachardy spends time in London and in New York; spring, Hockney begins work on a double portrait of Isherwood and Bachardy; October, Isherwood again begins writing Kathleen and Frank; also during 1968, Isherwood and Bachardy work together on the play of A Meeting by the River.

  1969 The Adventures of the Black Girl in Her Search for God opens at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles; Isherwood begins to have problems with Depuytren’s Contracture; July, Isherwood and Bachardy travel to Tahiti, Bora Bora, Samoa, New Zealand and Australia and begin work on a screenplay for Tony Richardson, I, Claudius, based on Robert Graves’s I, Claudius and Claudius the God; also in 1969, Bachardy spends time in London, and Essentials of Vedanta is published.

  1970 Isherwood destroys some old manuscripts, chiefly drafts of A Meeting by the River; February–April, in London together, he and Bachardy work on stage version of A Meeting by the River; Isherwood sends final draft of Kathleen and Frank to U.S. and U.K. publishers; also in 1970, E. M. Forster dies, leaving Isherwood the rights to Maurice, and Gerald Hamilton dies.

  1971 Isherwood completes revisions to Kathleen and Frank; February, Isherwood and Bachardy start work on a TV script of Frankenstein for Universal Studios; April 6, Stravinsky dies; August 14, Gerald Heard dies; August 26, Isherwood begins writing reconstructed diary of the “lost years,” 1945–1951; October, Kathleen and Frank published by Methuen; also in 1971, Bachardy spends time in New York and Isherwood undergoes hand surgery for Depuytren’s Contracture.

  1972 January, Isherwood sees preview of film Cabaret, based on the musical, and starring Liza Minelli, Joel Grey, and Michael York; U.S. edition of Kathleen and Frank published by Simon and Schuster, Isherwood travels to New York for publicity; February, Isherwood and Bachardy undertake another TV script for Universal, The Mummy or The Lady from the Land of the Dead; April, Los Angeles premiere of James Bridges’ production of A Meeting by the River; also in 1972, Isherwood receives award from Hollywood Writers’ Club for a lifetime of distinguished contributions to literature.

  1973 Isherwood and Bachardy travel to London for filming of Frankenstein; they visit Wyberslegh and afterwards go to Switzerland and Rome; summer, they work together on screenplay of A Meeting by the River; Bachardy has another show; Jean Ross dies; September 29, Auden dies; William Plomer dies; October, Isherwood begins a new autobiographical book (Christopher and His Kind); December, Isherwood and Bachardy’s screenplay, Frankenstein: The True Story published by Avon books.

  1974 Isherwood lectures in New Orleans; Bachardy has a show at the New York Cultural Center; August 26, Isherwood turns seventy; Dorothy Miller dies.

  1975 Isherwood works with Bachardy on a TV script adapted from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Beautiful and the Damned; Chester Kallman dies.

  1976 May, Isherwood completes final draft of Christopher and His Kind; Isherwood and Bachardy travel to London for “Young Writers of the Thirties,” an exhibition at the National Portrait Gallery; July 4, Swami Prabhavananda dies; November, Isherwood’s new U.S. publisher, Farrar Straus and Giroux, publishes Christopher and His Kind; Frankenstein, the True Story wins best scenario at the International Festival of Fantastic and Science Fiction Films.

  1977 March, U.K. edition of Christopher and His Kind published by Methuen.

  1979 May 15, Richard Isherwood dies of a heart attack; Isherwood and Bachardy collaborate on October.

  1980 My Guru and His Disciple published in U.S. and U.K.; July 16, Isherwood hears that Bill Caskey is dead; Bachardy shows paintings at the Robert Miller Gallery in New York; October, with drawings by Bachardy, published.

  1981 October, Isherwood learns that he has a malignant tumor in the prostate.

  1983 July, Isherwood makes his last diary entry; Bachardy’s One Hundred Drawings published by Twelve Trees Press.

  1985 Bachardy’s Drawings of the Male Nude published by Twelve Trees Press.

  1986 January 4, Isherwood dies in Santa Monica.

  Introduction

  Christopher Isherwood wrote in his diary several times a week almost continuously for about sixty years—from the early 1920s until July 1983, a month before his seventy-ninth birthday. This volume contains all the diary entries that he preserved from January 19, 1939, the day he left England for America with W. H. Auden, until August 26, 1960, the day he celebrated his fifty-sixth birthday in Santa Monica, California, with Don Bachardy. Most of Isherwood’s pre-1939 diaries have not survived; the later ones will be published in a second volume.

  Isherwood learned about diary keeping from his mother. Around the time of his christening in 1904, Kathleen Isherwood began a special record of his infant achievements, “The Baby’s Progress,” which stretched on into boyhood and was only brought to a close with her note of the publication of Isherwood’s first
novel in 1928, when he was twenty-four years old. By the time Isherwood was six, she had involved him in writing about his own life in “The History of My Friends,” a tiny book they made together, she writing, he evidently dictating. The opening lines are predictably cute, but characteristically for both authors, they are precisely worded and emphatically unfanciful:

  I first met Arthur Forbes in December 1909 when we returned from Frimley to Marple. He was just going to be four. He made up all sorts of wonderful things that he meant to do when he was five, just as if five was when you were grown up.1

  Kathleen Isherwood had first begun keeping her own diary at the start of 1883, one hundred years before Isherwood was to write in his diary for the last time. She was just fourteen years old, and by the end of the year, her efforts petered away to nothing. Seven years later, at twenty-two, she began again, and thereafter she went on recording her life for nearly seventy years. Isherwood repeated the pattern, but slightly more precociously. On January 1, 1917, the year he would turn thirteen, he began keeping his first diary in a little page-a-day book similar to the ones his mother used; possibly she gave him the diary. His brief entries continue through the year, and then he began another diary on January 1, 1918.2 This he carried on until September, not long after his fourteenth birthday, when the entries dwindle and stop. The same summer, for a school project, he also made a holiday journal describing visits with his mother to places of cultural interest such as Bath and illustrated with postcards; the holiday journal won a prize during Isherwood’s last term at his prep school, St. Edmund’s. After that it seems, he recorded nothing for six or seven years—at least nothing survives—until after his arrival at university.