The Sitwells (Edith Sitwell, Osbert Sitwell, Sacheverell Sitwell), from Scarborough, North Yorkshire and the family seat of Renishaw Hall, were three who formed an identifiable literary and artistic clique around themselves in London in the period roughly 1916 to 1930. This was marked by some well-publicised events, notably Edith's Façade with music by William Walton, with its public debut in 1923. All three Sitwells wrote; for a while their circle was considered by some to rival Bloomsbury group, though others dismissed them as attention-seekers rather than serious artists.[Pearson, John. Facades: Edith, Osbert, and Sacheverell Sitwell (1978)]
Wheels anthologies
The first Sitwell venture was the series of
Wheels Anthology produced from 1916.
[Cevasco, G. A. "Sitwell, Dame Edith Louisa (1887–1964), poet and biographer", Oxford Dictionary of National Biography Oxford University Press, 2009 ] These were seen either as a counterweight to the contemporary Edward Marsh
Georgian Poetry anthologies, or as light 'society verse' collections. They did not really match the
Imagism anthologies of the same years, or the
Modernism wing, in terms of finding poets with important careers ahead of them, but included both
Nancy Cunard and
Aldous Huxley.
Wheels 1916
Nancy Cunard, Arnold James, V. T. Perowne,
Helen Rootham,
Edith Sitwell,
Osbert Sitwell, Sacheverell Sitwell, Edward Tennant,
Iris Tree
Wheels 1917
Aldous Huxley, Arnold James, Helen Rootham, Edith Sitwell, Osbert Sitwell, Sacheverell Sitwell, Edward Tennant, Iris Tree,
Sherard Vines
Wheels 1918
Álvaro Guevara, Aldous Huxley, Arnold James, Edith Sitwell, Osbert Sitwell, Sacheverell Sitwell, Iris Tree, Sherard Vines
Wheels 1919
Aldous Huxley, Arnold James,
Wilfred Owen, Francesco Quevedo, Edith Sitwell, Osbert Sitwell, Sacheverell Sitwell, Iris Tree, Sherard Vines
Wheels 1920
John J. Adams, Leah McTavish Cohen,
Geoffrey Cookson, Aldous Huxley, Alan Porter, William Kean Seymour, Edith Sitwell, Osbert Sitwell, Sacheverell Sitwell, Sherard Vines
Wheels 1921
H. R. Barber, Aldous Huxley,
Charles Orange, Alan Porter,
Augustine Rivers,
Paul Selver, Edith Sitwell, Osbert Sitwell, Sacheverell Sitwell, Sherard Vines
Coat of arms
Barry of eight or and vert, charged with three lions rampant sable. The motto is
Ne cede malis (Latin: Yield not to misfortune).
Legacy
Wood End, the former family home of the Sitwells in Scarborough has been redeveloped into a "creative industries centre" providing artists' workspace as well as administrative and learning spaces.
Weston Hall in Northamptonshire, owned by the Sitwell family, was sold in 2021.
[ Weston Hall and the Sitwells: A Family Legacy]
A large collection of the Sitwells' papers reside at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center at The University of Texas, Austin.[ The Sitwell Collections at the Harry Ransom Center]
See also
Further reading
-
The Sitwells, Sarah Bradford, published in 1996 by the National Portrait Gallery to accompany the exhibition "The Sitwells and the arts of the 1920s and 1930s"; hardback ; paperback
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Renishaw Hall: The Story of the Sitwells, Desmond Seward; hardback published by Elliott & Thompson, 2015
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A Nest of Tigers: The Sitwells in Their Times, John Lehmann (1968)
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Facades: Edith, Osbert, and Sacheverell Sitwell, John Pearson (1978)
External links
