The Sitwells

Other names: 

Edith (Louisa) Sitwell (b. 7 September 1887; d. 9 December 1964)

(Francis) Osbert (Sacheverell) Sitwell (b. 6 December 1892; d. 4 May 1969)

Sacheverell Sitwell (b. 15 November 1897; d. 1 Ocotber 1988)

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City of birth: 
Scarborough, North Yorkshire (Edith and Sacheverell); London (Osbert)
Country of birth: 
England
Location of death: 
London (Edith); Montegufoni, Italy (Osbert); Towcester, Northamptonshire (Sacheverell)
Location: 

Renishaw Hall, Derbyshire

Scarborough (another ancestral home)

Pembridge Mansions, Moscow Road, Bayswater, London (Edith Sitwell’s London home from 1914-1932) 

Swan Walk, Chelsea (Osbert Sitwell’s London base until 1919)

2 Carlyle Square, King’s Road, Chelsea (Osbert Sitwell’s London home from 1919 to 1963)

The Sesame Club, 49 Grosvenor Street, London (Edith Sitwell’s residence)

2
About: 

The three Sitwell siblings – Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell – were poets, writers, and patrons of artists, who fashioned themselves as artistic leaders in the 1920s and 1930s, rivalling those in the ‘Bloomsbury Group’. They came from an aristocratic and wealthy family, and spent most of their childhood at Renishaw Hall, the family’s stately home in Derbyshire. In the 1910s, they moved to London. Their first venture was an annual anthology of modern verse called Wheels, edited by Edith Sitwell from 1916 to 1921, which collected the work of many young talents such as Nancy Cunard, Wilfred Owen and Aldous Huxley, as well as their own poems. The Sitwells achieved legendary status when Edith gave a reading of her poetry collection Façade in London’s Aeolian Hall in 1923; her poems were accompanied by orchestral music by William Walton, and the poet controversially spoke using a Sengerphone, with her back towards the audience. The Sitwells considered themselves as rebels against ‘philistine’ values and accepted artistic conventions. They thrived on hostile criticism and were united against their sworn ‘enemies’, many of whom were once their close friends, such as Noël Coward and Wyndham Lewis. The Sitwells became estranged from D. H. Lawrence over his publication of Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928).

All three Sitwells were prolific writers, but they are best remembered as cultural icons due to their style and personality. C. L. R. James, who recorded his meeting with Edith Sitwell in 1932, remembers how her reputation as an eccentric artist was well known in Trinidad, and, upon meeting her, he described her as ‘a striking figure [and] even more decidedly a personality’. The Sitwells defined themselves against the Cambridge-oriented Bloomsbury Group, but nevertheless had close relationships with many of its members, and were often spotted at its social functions. Mulk Raj Anand, in Conversations in Bloomsbury, records his meeting with Edith Sitwell at a party, and her conversation with D. H. Lawrence and Aldous Huxley. Edith was a close friend of Tambimuttu, and both she and Osbert were contributors to his Poetry London.

Connections: 

Harold Acton, Kingsley Amis, Mulk Raj Anand, Michael Arlen, George Barker, Cecil Beaton, Clive Bell, Max Beerbohm, Maurice Bowra, Sylvia Beach, Bryher (Winifred Ellerman), Stella Bowen, Roy Campbell, Maurice Carpenter, Jean Cocteau, Cyril Connolly, Noël Coward, Anthony Cronin, Nancy Cunard, Bonamy Dobree, Valentine Dobree, Richard Eberhart, T. S. Eliot, Northrop Fry, Edmund Gosse, Grahame Greene, E. M. Foster, Roger Fry, Robert Graves, John Gawsworth, Graham Greene, Alec Guinness, John Hayward, Robert Herring, David Horner, Aldous Huxley, C. L. R. James, C. Richard Jennings, C. E. M. Joad, Maynard Keynes, Constant Lambert, D. H. Lawrence, Jack Lindsay, John Lehmann, Wyndham Lewis, Elkin Mathews, Somerset Maugham, Raymond Marriott, Charlotte Mew, Harold Monro, Alida Monro, Marianne Moore, John Middleton Murry, Robert Nichols, Wilfred Owen, William Plomer, Katherine Ann Porter, Ezra Pound, J. B. Priestley, Herbert Read, Max Reinhardt, George Russell, Siegfried Sassoon, Vita Sackville-West, Nikhil Sen, George Bernard Shaw, Sydney Schiff, Violet Schiff, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji, Walter Sickert, Stephen Spender, Gertrude Stein, Lytton Strachey, Meary James Tambimuttu, Pavel Tchelichew, Dylan Thomas, Feliks Topolski, Iris Tree, Sherard Vines, William Walton, Evelyn Waugh, Arthur Waley, Denton Welch, Rebecca West, Leonard Woolf, Virginia Woolf, W. B. Yeats, Beryl de Zoete.

Network: 
Mulk Raj Anand
Meary James Tambimuttu
Organizations: 
Poetry London
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Published works: 

Edith Sitwell:

The Mother and Other Poems (Oxford: Blackwell, 1915)

(ed.) Wheels: An Anthology of Verse (Blackwell: Oxford, 1916-21)

Clowns’ Houses (Oxford: Blackwell, 1918)

The Wooden Pegasus (Oxford: Blackwell, 1920)

Façade (Kensington: Favil Press, 1922)

Bucolic Comedies (London: Duckworth, 1923)

The Sleeping Beauty (London: Duckworth, 1924)

Troy Park (London: Duckworth, 1925)

Poetry and Criticism (London: Hogarth Press, 1925)

Elegy on Dead Fashion (London: Duckworth, 1926)

Rustic Elegies (London: Duckworth, 1927)

Popular Song, illustrated with designs by Edward Bawden (London: Faber & Gwyer, 1928)

Five Poems (London: Duckworth, 1928)

Gold Coast Customs (London: Duckworth, 1929)

Alexander Pope (London: Faber & Faber, 1930)

(ed.) The Pleasures of Poetry: A Critical Anthology (London: Duckworth, 1930-32)

Epithalamium (London: G. Duckworth & Co., 1931)

Jane Barston, with a drawing by R. A. Davies (London: Faber & Faber, 1931) 

In Spring, with wood engravings by Edward Carrick (London: privately printed, 1931)

Bath (London: Faber & Faber, 1932)

The English Eccentrics (London: Faber & Faber, 1933; revised and enlarged edition, London: Dobson, 1958)

Five Variations on a Theme (London: Duckworth, 1933)

Aspects of Modern Poetry (London: Duckworth, 1934)

Victoria of England (London: Faber & Faber, 1936)

Selected Poems (London: Duckworth, 1936)

I Live Under a Black Sun (London: Victor Gollancz, 1937)

(ed.) Edith Sitwell’s Anthology (London: Victor Gollancz, 1940)

Poems New and Old (London: Faber & Faber, 1940)

(ed.) Look: The Sun (London: Victor Gollancz, 1941)

Street Songs (London: Macmillan, 1942)

English Women (London: Collins, 1942)

A Poet’s Notebook (London: Macmillan, 1943)

Green Song & Other Poems (London: Macmillan, 1944)

(ed.) Planet and Glow-Worm: A Book for the Sleepless (London: Macmillan & Co., 1944)

The Song of the Cold (London: Macmillan, 1945)

Fanfare for Elizabeth (London: Macmillan, 1946)

The Shadow of Cain (London: Lehmann, 1947)

A Notebook on William Shakespeare (London: Macmillan, 1948)

‘For T. S. Eliot’, in T. S. Eliot: A Symposium, from Conrad Aiken and Others, complied by Richard March and Tambimuttu (London : Editions Poetry, 1948), pp. 33-4

The Canticle of the Rose: Selected Poems, 1920-1947 (London: Macmillan, 1949)

Poor Men’s Music (London: Fore Publications, 1950)

(ed.) A Book of the Winter (London: Macmillan & Co., 1950)

(ed.) The American Genius (London: John Lehmann, 1951)

Gardeners and Astronomers (London: Macmillan, 1953)

‘Coming to London’, in William Plomer and Leonard Woolf (eds) Coming to London (London: Phoenix House, 1957), pp. 167-76

The Outcasts (London: Macmillan, 1962)

The Queens of the Hive (London: Macmillan, 1962)

Taken Care Of (London: Hutchinson, 1965)

 

Osbert Sitwell:

The Winstonburg Line: Three Satires (London: Hendersons, 1919)

Argonaut and Juggernaut (London: Chatto & Windus, 1919)

At the House of Mrs. Kinfoot: Consisting of Four Satires (Kensington: Favil Press, 1921)

Who Killed Cock-Robin?: Remarks on Poetry, on its Criticism, and, as a Sad Warning, the Story of Eunuch Arden (London: Daniel, 1921)

Out of the Flame (London: Richards, 1923)

 Triple Fugue (London: Richards, 1924)

(with Margaret Barton) Brighton (London: Faber & Faber, 1925)

C. R. W. Nevinson, as O. S. (London: Benn, 1925)

Discursions on Travel, Art and Life (London: Richards, 1925)

Before the Bombardment (London: Duckworth, 1926)

England Reclaimed: A Book of Eclogues (London: Duckworth, 1927)

The People’s Album of London Statues (London: Duckworth, 1928)

Miss Mew (Stanford Dingley: Mill House Press, 1929)

The Man Who Lost Himself (London: Duckworth, 1929)

Dumb-Animal, and Other Stories (London: Duckworth, 1930)

 Three-Quarter Length Portrait of Michael Arlen. With a Preface: The History of a Portrait, by the Author (London: Heinemann, 1930)

The Collected Satires and Poems of Osbert Sitwell (London: Duckworth, 1931)

A Three-Quarter Length Portrait of the Viscountess Wimborne (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931)

(ed. with Margaret Barton) Victoriana: A Symposium of Victorian Wisdom (London: Duckworth, 1931)

Dickens (London: Chatto & Windus, 1932)

Miracle on Sinai: A Satirical Novel (London: Duckworth, 1933)

Penny Foolish: A Book of Tirades and Panegyrics (London: Macmillan, 1935)

Mrs. Kimber (London: Macmillan, 1937)

Those Were the Days: Panorama with Figures (London: Macmillan, 1938)

Escape with Me!: An Oriental Sketch-Book (London: Macmillan, 1939)

(ed.) Two Generations (London: Macmillan, 1940)

Open the Door!: A Volume of Stories (London: Macmillan, 1941)

A Place of One’s Own (London: Macmillan, 1941)

(with Rubeigh James Minney) Gentle Caesar: A Play in Three Acts (London: Macmillan, 1942)

Selected Poems Old and New (London: Duckworth, 1943)

(ed. with Margaret Barton) Sober Truth: A Collection of Nineteenth-Century Episodes, Fantastic, Grotesque and Mysterious (London: MacDonald, 1944)

Left Hand, Right Hand! (London: Macmillan, 1945)

A Letter to My Son (London: Home & Van Thal, 1944)

Sing High! Sing Low!: A Book of Essays (London: Macmillan, 1944)

The True Story of Dick Whittington: A Christmas Story for Cat-Lovers (London: Home & Van Thal, 1945)

The Scarlet Tree (London: Macmillan, 1946)

Alive-Alive Oh! and Other Stories (London: Pan, 1947)

Great Morning! (London: Macmillan, 1948)

The Novels of George Meredith and Some Notes on the English Novel (London: Oxford University Press, 1947)

(ed.) Walter Sickert, A Free House! Or, The Artist as Craftsman (London: Macmillan, 1947)

Four Songs of the Italian Earth (Pawlet, Vt.: Banyan Press, 1948)

Laughter in the Next Room (London: Macmillan, 1948)

Death of a God, and Other Stories (London: Macmillan, 1949)

Demos the Emperor: A Secular Oratorio (London: Macmillan, 1949)

England Reclaimed, and Other Poems (Boston: Little, Brown, 1949)

Introduction to the Catalogue of the Frick Collection: Published on the Founder’s Centenary, 19 December 1949 (New York: Ram Press, 1949)

Noble Essences: A Book of Characters (Boston: Little, Brown, 1950)

Winters of Content, and Other Discursions on Mediterranean Art and Travel (London: Duckworth, 1950)

Wrack at Tidesend, a Book of Balnearics: Being the Second Volume of England Reclaimed (London: Macmillan, 1952)

Collected Stories (London: Duckworth, 1953)

The Four Continents: Being More Discursions an Travel, Art, and Life (London: Macmillan, 1954)

On the Continent: A Book of Inquilinics. Being the Third Volume of England Reclaimed (London: Macmillan, 1958)

Fee Fi Fo Fum!: A Book of Fairy Stories (London: Macmillan, 1959)

A Place of One’s Own, and Other Stories (London: Icon, 1961)

Tales My Father Taught Me: An Evocation of Extravagant Episodes (London: Hutchinson, 1962)

Pound Wise (London: Hutchinson, 1963)

Queen Mary and Others (London: Joseph, 1974)

 

Sacheverell Sitwell:

The People’s Palace (Oxford: Blackwell, 1918)

The Hundred and One Harlequins (London: Grant Richards, 1922)

Doctor Donne and Gargantua: First Canto, with drawings by Wyndham Lewis (London: Favile Press, 1921)

All Summer in a Day: An Autobiographical Fantasia (London: Duckworth, 1926) 

The Thirteenth Caesar, and Other Poems (London: Grant Richards, 1924)

Exalt the Eglantine, and Other Poems, decorated by Thomas Lowinsky (London: The Fleuron, 1926) 

Southern Baroque Art (London: Grant Richards, 1924)

German Baroque Art (London: Duckworth, 1927)

The Cyder Feast, and Other Poems (London: Duckworth, 1927)

Two Poems, Ten Songs (London: Duckworth, 1929)

The Gothick North: The Visit of the Gypsies (London: Duckworth, 1929)

Doctor Donne & Gargantua: The First Six Cantos (London; Houghton Mifflin Co., 1930; New York : G. Duckworth & Co., 1930)

Beckford and Beckfordism: An Essay (London: Duckworth, 1930)

Far from My Home, Stories: Long and Short (London: Duckworth, 1931)

Spanish Baroque Art, with Buildings in Portugal, Mexico and Other Colonies (London: Duckworth, 1931)

Mozart (London: Peter Davis, 1932)

Canons of Giant Art: Twenty Torsos in Heroic Landscapes (London: Faber & Faber, 1933)

Touching the Orient: Six Sketches (London: Duckworth, 1934)

Liszt (London: Faber & Faber, 1934)

Scarlatti (London: Faber & Faber, 1935)

A Background for Domenico Scarlatti, 1685-1757 (London: Faber & Faber, 1935)

Dance of the Quick and the Dead: An Entertainment of the Imagination (London: Faber & Faber, 1936)

Collected Poems, introductory essay by Edith Sitwell (London: Duckworth, 1936)

Conversation Pieces: A Survey of English Domestic Portraits and their Painters (London: Batsford, 1936)

Narrative Pictures (London: Batsford, 1937)

Old Fashioned Flowers (London: Country Life, 1939)

Poltergeists: An Introduction and Examination Followed by Chosen Instances (London: Faber & Faber, 1940)

Sacred and Profane Love (London: Faber & Faber, 1940)

Mauretania:Warrior, Man and Woman (London: Duckworth, 1940)

The Homing of the Winds, and Other Passages in Prose (London: Faber & Faber, 1942)

Splendours and Miseries (London: Faber & Faber, 1943)

British Architecture and Craftsmen: A Survey of Taste, Design, and Sstyle during Three Centuries, 1600 to 1830, etc. (London: Batsford, 1945)

The Hunters and Hunted (London: Macmillan, 1947)

Selected Poems, preface by Osbert Sitwell (London: Duckworth, 1948)

Morning, Noon and Night in London (London: Macmillan, 1948)

The Netherlands (London: Batsford, 1948)

Spain (London: Batsford, 1950)

Cupid and the Jacaranda (London: Macmillan & Co., 1952) 

Truffle Hunt (London: Robert Hale, 1953)

(with Handasyde Buchanan and James Fisher) Fine Bird Books, 1700-1900 (London: Collins, 1953)

Portugal and Madeira (London: Batsford, 1954)

(with Wilfrid Blunt) Great Flower Books, 1700-1900, edited by P. W. Synge (London: Collins, 1955)

Denmark (London: Batsford, 1956)

Arabesque and Honeycomb (London: Robert Hale, 1957)

Malta, illustrated by Tony Armstrong Jones (London: Batsford, 1958)

Bridge of the Brocade Sash: Travels and Observations in Japan (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1959)

Austria, with photographs by Toni Schneiders (London: Thames & Hudson, 1959)

Journey to the Ends of Time (London: Cassell, 1959)

Golden Wall and Mirador: From England to Peru (London: Weidenfeld & Nicholson, 1961)

The Red Chapels of Banteai, and Temples in Cambodia, India, Siam, and Nepal (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1962)

To Henry Woodward (London: Covent Garden Press, 1972)

Tropicalia (Edinburgh: Ramsay Head Press, 1972)

Agamemnon’s Tomb (Edinburgh: Tragara Press, 1972) 

The Archipelago of Daffodils (Brackley: Smart & Co., 1972)

Auricula Theatre (Brackley: Smart & Co., 1972) 

For Want of a Golden City (London: Day, 1973)

Brother and Sister: A Ballad of the Paralelo (Daventry: M. Battison, 1977)

Diptycha Musica: Living Dangerously (Daventry: M. Battison, 1977)

The Octogenarian (Daventry: M. Battison, 1977)

Nine Ballads; [and] Four More Lilies (Daventry: M. Battison, 1977)

Dodecameron: A Self Portrait in Twelve Poems with an Apologia in Prose (Daventry: M. Battison, 1977) 

An Indian Summer: 100 Recent Poems (London: Macmillan, 1982)

Catalysts in Collusion: A Book of Catalysts (Badby: M. Battison, 1980)

Hortus Sitwellianus, with line illustrations by Meriel Edmunds (Wilton, Salisbury, Wiltshire: M. Russell, 1984)

 

Collaborations:

Sitwell, Edith and Sitwell, Osbert, Twentieth-Century Harlequinade and Other Poems (Oxford: Blackwell, 1916)

Sitwell, Edith, Sitwell, Osbert and Sitwell, Sacheverell, Poor Young People (London: Fleuron, 1925)

Sitwell, Osbert and Sitwell, Sacheverell, All at Sea: A Social Tragedy in Three Acts for First-Class Passengers Only (London: Duckworth, 1927)

Sitwell, Edith, Sitwell, Osbert and Sitwell, Sacheverell, Trio: Dissertations on Some Aspects of National Genius, Delivered as the Northcliffe Lectures at the University of London in 1937 (London: Macmillan, 1938; Freeport, N.Y.: Books for Libraries Press, 1970)

Contributions to periodicals: 

Edith Sitwell:

Adam, Art and Letters, Athenaeum, Atlantic Monthly, Cambridge Magazine, The Chapbook, Coterie, Criterion, Daily Herald, Daily Mirror, Encounter, The English Review, Form, The Fortnightly Review, The Golden Hind, Good Housekeeping, The Graphic, Harper’s Bazaar, Horizon, Joy Street, Life and Letters Today, The Literary Digest, The Living Age, The Listener, London Magazine, The Nation and Athenaeum, The New Age, New Statesman and Nation, New Writing and Daylight, The Nineteenth Century and After, Oxford Outlook, Meanjin, Penguin New Writing, Poetry, Poetry London, Quarterly Review of Literature, Saturday Westminster Gazette, Saturday Review of Literature, The Sackbut, Sunday Express, Sunday Graphic, Sunday Referee, Spectator, Time and Tide, Times Literary Supplement, View, Vogue, Woman’s Journal.

Criterion (review of Charlotte Mew, The Farmer’s Bride and The Rambling Sailor, 9.34, October 1929, pp. 130-4)

Criterion (review of Gertrude Stein, The Making of Americans, 4.2, April 1926, pp. 390-2)

Weekly Dispatch (‘Who are the Sitwells – and why do they do it?’, 14, 14 November 1926)

Atlantic Monthly (‘Dylan Thomas’, 193.2, Feb 1954, pp. 42-5)

Poetry (‘Elegy for Dylan Thomas’, 87.2, 1955/1956, pp. 63-7)

Poetry (‘Roy Campbell’, 92.1, 1958, pp. 42-8)

 

Osbert Sitwell:

The Apple, Architectural Review, American Scholar, Art and Letters, Atlantic Monthly, Burlington Magazine, Bystander, Cambridge Magazine, The Cavalcade, The Chapbook, Cornhill Magazine, Coterie, Creative Art, Criterion, Daily Graphic, The  Dial, The English Review, The Fortnightly Review, Good Housekeeping, Harper’s Bazaar, Harper’s Monthly Magazine, Horizon, Life and Letters, Lilliput, The Listener, The Living Age, London Magazine, The Nation, The Nation and Athenaeum, National and English Review, New Chronicle, New Republic, New Statesman, Nash’s Pall Mall Magazine, New Writing and Daylight, Penguin New Writing, Poetry, Poetry London, Strand Magazine, The Queen, The Sackbut, Saturday Westminster Gazette, St Martin’s Review, Saturday Review of Literature, Sunday Referee, Spectator, The Studio, Times Literary Supplement, Town & Country, Vogue, Weekend-Review, Wine & Food, Yale Review.

Criterion (‘A German Eighteenth-Century Town’, 2.8, July 1924, pp. 433-47)

Nash’s Pall Mall Magazine (‘We Three’, 92.486, November 1933, pp. 64-9)

Spectator (‘A War to End Class War’, 163.5812, 17 November 1939)

Spectator (‘Roger Fry and Sir Osbert Sitwell, 174.6095, 21 May 1948)

Sunday Times (‘Bloomsbury in the 1920s’, 6 February 1949, p. 6)

Atlantic Monthly (‘Wilfred Owen’, 186.3, 1950, pp. 37-42)

 

Sacheverell Sitwell:

Architectural Review, Ark, Art and Letters, Atlantic Monthly, Burlington Magazine, The Chapbook, Country Life, The Countryman, Coterie, Criterion, The Egoist, Encounter, Foyer, The Fortnightly, Geographic Magazine, Harper’s Bazaar, House and Garden, Housewife, Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society, Journal of the Royal Society of Arts, Life and Letters Today, Lilliput, The Listener, The London Aphrodite, Musical Times, My Garden, The Nation and Athenaeum, Nine, New Statesman, New World Writing, The New York Times Magazine, Picture Post, Poetry, Radio Times, Realités, Saturday Book, Strand Magazine, The Queen, The Sackbut, Spectator, Vogue.

Criterion (‘Three Variations [poem]’, 2.7, April 1924, pp. 296-9)

The Listener (‘Epstein on Himself’, 24.623, 19 December 1940)

The Listener (‘Nuptials of the East and West’, 56.1438, 18 October 1956, pp. 609-10)

Reviews: 

Edith Sitwell:

Sherard Vines, Criterion 8.3, July 1929, pp. 710-15 (Gold Coast Customs, and Other Poems)

Wyndham Lewis, Time and Tide 15.46, 17 November 1934, pp. 1410-12 (Aspects of Modern Poetry)

Katherine Anne Porter, New York Herald Tribute, 18 December 1949 (The Canticle of the Rose)

Spender, Stephen, New Republic 152.17, 24 April 1965, pp. 19-20 (Taken Care Of)

 

Osbert Sitwell:

Conrad Aiken, Criterion 3.9, October 1924, pp. 141-4 (Triple Fugue)

C. E. M. Joad, Spectator 146.5369, 23 May 1931 (Victoriana)

O. W., Criterion 11.45, July 1932, p. 757 (Dickens)

Sacheverell Sitwell, Life and Letters Today 47.98, October 1945, pp. 52-60 (Left Hand, Right Hand!)

 

Sacheverell Sitwell:

C. P. A., Criterion 2.8, July 1924, pp. 486-9 (Southern Baroque Art)

Harold Monro, Criterion 3.10, January 1925, pp. 322-6 (The Thirteenth Caesar)

G. R., Monthly Criterion 5.2, May 1927, pp. 273-4 (All Summer in a Day)

John Gould Fletcher, Monthly Criterion 6.2, August 1927, pp. 168-72 (The Cyder-Feast and Other Poems)

Roger Hinks, Criterion 9.34, October 1929, pp. 155-7 (The Gothick North: The Visit of the Gypsies)

Geoffrey Grigson, Criterion 13.50, October 1933, p. 138 (Canons of Giant Art)

Orlo Williams, Criterion 16.63, January 1937, pp. 346-9 (Dance of the Quick and the Dead)

Bonamy Dobrée, Spectator 147.5378, 25 July 1931 (Spanish Baroque Art)

 

The Sitwells:

Richard Aldington, ‘The Poetry of the Sitwells’, Poetry 17, 1920/1921

Arnold Bennett, ‘Sitwells’, Adelphi 1.3, August 1923

Vivian Mercier, ‘Another Look at the Sitwells’, The Hudson Review 7.3, Autumn 1954, pp. 445-53

Stuart Fletcher, ‘The Tragedy of the Sitwells’, The Sackbut 9, August 1928, pp. 17-19

‘The Three Sitwells: A Study of That Trio of Ornaments of English Life and Letters’, Vanity Fair 32.6, 1929, p. 44

Secondary works: 

Bradford, Sarah, et al., The Sitwells and the Arts of the 1920s and 1930s, 2nd edn (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1996)

Cevasco, G. A., The Sitwells: Edith, Osbert, and Sacheverell (Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1987)

Elborn, Geoffrey, Edith Sitwell: A Biography (London: Sheldon, 1981)

Fifoot, Richard, A Bibliography of Edith, Osbert, and Sacheverell Sitwell, revised edition (Hamden, Conn.: Archon, 1971)

Glendinning, Victoria, Edith Sitwell: A Unicorn Among Lions (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1981)

James, C. L. R., ‘Bloomsbury: An Encounter with Edith Sitwell’, in The C.L.R. James Reader, ed. by Anna Grimshaw (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992), pp. 43-8

Lehmann, John, A Nest of Tigers: The Sitwells in Their Times (London: Macmillan, 1968)

Meegroz, R. L., The Three Sitwells: A Biographical and Critical Study (London: Richards Press, 1927)

Nandakumar, Prema, ‘Edith Sitwell: 1887-1964’ (obituary), Aryan Path 36.11 (November 1965), pp. 501-8

Pearson, John, Façades: Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell (London: Macmillan, 1978)

Salter, Elizabeth Fulton, The Last Years of a Rebel: A Memoir of Edith Sitwell (London: Bodley Head, 1967)

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Archive source: 

Volume of manuscript poems by Edith Sitwell (1887-1964), Dept. of Manuscripts and Special Collections, University of Nottingham

Edith Sitwell Letters, University of Sussex Special Collections

Osbert Sitwell, correspondence and compositions, MS Eng 1293, Houghton Library, Harvard College Library

Edith Sitwell Papers, 1932-1964 (bulk 1959-1962), Manuscripts Division, Department of Rare Books and Special Collections, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey

Dame Edith Sitwell Collection, Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center, University of Texas at Austin

MS and letters, British Library, St Pancras

Letters, London Library

Thomas Balston: Papers of the Sitwells, 1924-1960, Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections, Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA

Letters, King's College Archive Centre, Cambridge

Correspondence and literary papers, Historical Manuscripts Commission, National Register of Archives

Letters and literary MSS, University of Iowa Libraries, Iowa City

Dame Edith Sitwell Fonds (F0408), Osbert Sitwell Fonds (F0409), and Sacheverell Sitwell Fonds (F0410), York University, Toronto

Letters, Bodleian Library, Oxford

Letters from Osbert and Sacheverell Sitwell, Kaikhosru Shapurji Sorabji Collection

The William Ready Division of Archives and Research Collections, McMaster University Library, Hamilton, ON, Canada