Edith Sitwell

For the better part of forty years, Edith Sitwell's poetry has been neglected by critics. But born into a family of privileged eccentrics, Edith Sitwell was highly regarded by her contemporaries: the great writers and artists of the day who attended her unlikely London literary salon.

Her quips and anecdotes were legendary and her works like English Eccentrics confirmed her comic genius, while later she established herself as the quintessential poet of the Blitz.

This masterly biography, meticulously researched and drawing on many previously unseen letters, firmly places Edith Sitwell in the literary tradition to which she belongs.

Richard Greene is Professor of English at Toronto University and a renowned biographer.

'A wonderful new biography . . . Brilliant, wise, funny and affectionate. It is perfection, actually' Roger Lewis, Daily Mail A strange combination of kindness and cruelty, courage and duplicity, simplicity and artifice - Edith Sitwell was undoubtedly eccentric and savagely amusing. But Sitwell is a writer who matters - enormously. And as a poet, the most significant events in her life were the poems. It is thirty years since a biography of this important poet last appeared. It is time to look again at Edith Sitwell. ' Sitwell is important: a modernist pioneer; a glorious example of the outsider life well led...This book contains so much that is new - Greene has had access to Sitwell's vast correspondence with the painter Pavel Tchelitchew, with whom she had an unreciprocated, non-physical love affair - and will no doubt be considered definitive' Rachel Cooke, Observer 'Greene has made a convincing case for her peculiar genius. This is excellent, particularly in its analysis of Edith's poetry and her literary relationships' Sarah Bradford, Literary Review 'Greene takes pains to show us the private Sitwell, her loyalty and sympathy, her gentleness and generosity, her loneliness and vulnerability.' Deborah Longworth, THES 'Glows with loving admiration for her generous spirit, fierce sense of vocation, and shameless, irrepressible quirkiness . . . Richard Greene is an intelligent, sympathetic writer.' Richard Davenport-Hines, Sunday Telegraph

For the better part of forty years, Edith Sitwell's poetry has been neglected by critics. But born into a family of privileged eccentrics, Edith Sitwell was highly regarded by her contemporaries: the great writers and artists of the day who attended her unlikely London literary salon.Her quips and anecdotes were legendary and her works like English Eccentrics confirmed her comic genius, while later she established herself as the quintessential poet of the Blitz.This masterly biography, meticulously researched and drawing on many previously unseen letters, firmly places Edith Sitwell in the literary tradition to which she belongs.

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