The Sitwells and the Arts of the 1920s and 1930s

Edith, Osbert, and Sacheverell Sitwell rarely missed an opportunity to promote themselves or denounce their sworn enemy, the Philistine. The Sitwells were natural subjects, and targets, for the media. Unconventional, aristocratic, and physically imposing, they were bold, talented, and provocative. This book celebrates their lives and their artistic crusade, which brought them into contact and conflict with many of the leading figures of the arts in the early part of this century. Gertrude Stein, T.S. Eliot, Dylan Thomas, and Evelyn Waugh were among their friends; their favorite enemies included Wyndham Lewis, Noel Coward, and D.H. Lawrence. The book begins with their childhood at Renishaw, the ancestral home in Derbyshire, England, and with their ill-matched parents, the eccentric Sir George and the extravagant Lady Ida. It follows them to London, to the fashionable circles of Bloomsbury and the elegant drawing rooms of celebrated society hostesses; and to Paris, to the studios Modigliani and Picasso. It discusses their involvement with the Russian ballet, their early literary ventures, and their patronage of the young composer William Walton, which resulted in Facade, their most famous collaboration. In 1925, Sacheverell Sitwell married the beautiful and spirited Georgia Doble, which precipitated the break-up of the trio. The book's final chapters are devoted to the individual lives of Edith, Osbert, and Sacheverell; their friendships, their literary successes and failures, their fame, and their continuing battles.