Discover Top Posts Tagged with #osbert sitwell

Popular Recent

He was a good judge of people, very observant and discerning, though perhaps inclined to be over-frank in his summing up of them.

Osbert Sitwell on George VI (Rat Week: An Essay on the Abdication)

#King George VI #British Royal Family #Osbert Sitwell

How come the Sitwells and Siegfried were ‘frenemies’ (if that’s even how you spell it- I can’t spell for toffee lmaooo) Love your blog btw 😁

First of all, sorry for my late reply, but I couldn’t find the book I was looking for.

Sassoon was friends with the Sitwells but also had beef with them. Out of the three siblings, he was the closest with Edith, who was instrumental in editing the first volume of Wilfred Owen’s poems, and some people even suggested they should get married. They gradually drifted apart though. You can read an interesting article which touches upon their friendship here.

It was Sassoon’s friendship with Osbert that was especially tinged with enmity (hence “frenemies”) and #DRAMA.

Here are some interesting passages from Jean Moorcroft Wilson’s Siegfried Sassoon:

“Only three months after the break in November 1921, Sassoon deliberately followed [Osbert Sitwell] out of a concert at Wigmore Hall for the pleasure of ‘cutting’ him outside. Thinking about it afterwards, he suddenly realized that his attitude towards Osbert was ‘strongly sadistic’ […].”

“Osbert himself, who practised what Sassoon called ‘passive resistance’ throughout their feud, sending ‘amiable notes’ via mutual friends, claimed: ‘Much mischief was made for us both before you quarrelled with me, and more, I imagine, since.’”

“What emerges most clearly from Sassoon’s comments during the eighteen months’ quarrel is how obsessed he was by Osbert. Pride prevents him making any move towards reconciliation. Another seven months pass and he is still ‘grim’ and ‘unkind’ to Osbert when they meet at Nellie Burton’s house in June 1923. But by the end of June 1923 he realizes that he is paying heavily for his feud, which by now seems to him ‘futile’. The end is in sight. When he meets Osbert unexpectedly the next day at the Reform, he forgets to scowl, though abstains from smiling. There is a slight hitch in the reconciliation process when he discovers that Osbert has left him a ‘funny’ post-card with the hall-porter and, ‘infuriated’, he sends a ‘silly’ one back. But he immediately regrets it and, when Osbert then sends him a jokey Valentine in response, he finally capitulates: ‘He always gets the last word and scores off me.”

#siegfried sassoon #osbert sitwell #edith sitwell

Arthur Waley, Princess Elizabeth (Queen Elizabeth II), Queen Elizabeth (the Queen Mother), Osbert Sitwell, Princess Margaret and Walter de la Mare, listening to T.S. Eliot read his poetry, 1943

#royalty #royal family #queen elizabeth ii #queen mother #princess margaret #arthur waley #t.s. eliot #osbert sitwell #walter de la mare #1940s #1943

Osbert Sitwell was at lunch & I brought you into the conversation - at the risk of compromise - with devilish cunning.

Dolly Wilde to Natalie Barney, 14 July 1927

#from truly wilde p340 #dolly wilde #natalie barney #osbert sitwell #queer history

Recordings at Harvard

Listen to poets read their own work! Hear their voices for the first time. I've found several Bright Young Things listed there, many who were friends of Stephen Tennant or Siegfried Sassoon.

At this link for HOLLIS, you can search in the Keywords field for the following:

Siegfried Sassoon

EM Forster

Osbert Sitwell

John Betjeman

Stephen Spender

Elizabeth Bowen

Edmund Blunden

Robert Graves

Anita Loos

..as well as other famous poets such as Dylan Thomas, Frost & others!