James Pope-Hennessy
James Pope-Hennessy | |
---|---|
Born | 20 November 1916 London, England |
Died | 25 January 1974 (aged 57) London, England |
Resting place | Kensal Green Cemetery in London |
Other names | Richard James Arthur Pope-Hennessy |
Occupation | Writer |
Known for |
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James Pope Hennessy CVO (20 November 1916 – 25 January 1974) was a British biographer and travel writer.
Early life
Richard James Arthur Pope-Hennessy was born in London on 20 November 1916, the younger son of
Writing career
Largely owing to his mother's influence, he decided to become a writer and left Oxford in 1937 without taking a degree. He went to work for the Catholic publishers Sheed and Ward as an editorial assistant. While working at the company's offices, in Paternoster Row in London, he worked on his first book, London Fabric (1939), for which he was awarded the Hawthornden Prize.[4] During this period, he was involved in a circle of notable literary figures including Harold Nicolson, Raymond Mortimer and James Lees-Milne.[5]
He left the publishers in 1938 when his mother found him a job as private secretary to
Pope-Hennessy enjoyed his time in the United States and made many friends there.[6] After the end of the war he wrote an account of his experiences in America. On his return to London in 1945 he shared a flat with the British intelligence officer Guy Burgess, who later defected to the Soviet Union. He had a brief spell as the literary editor of The Spectator between 1947 and 1949, before he decided to travel to France and write Aspects of Provence, which was published in 1952.
He would eventually establish himself as one of the leading biographers of his time; his first effort in this direction being a two-volume biography of
In 1970, he took out Irish citizenship and went to live at Banagher in County Offaly,[7] where he took rooms at the Shannon Hotel, and during the next few years produced authoritative biographies of both Anthony Trollope and Robert Louis Stevenson. Trollope himself had chosen James' grandfather, John Pope Hennessy, as the basis for the character Phineas Finn in his novel of the same name.[8] Robert Louis Stevenson was published posthumously and without revision in 1974.[9] He became a popular figure in Banagher, evidenced by the fact that he was asked to adjudicate at a local beauty pageant and the horse fair, the oldest in Ireland.[10][11] On being given a large advance he returned to London in 1974 to begin work on his next subject, Noël Coward.
Death and personal life
Despite being a successful professional writer, Pope-Hennessy was careless with money. He suffered a series of financial crises and often relied on the goodwill of friends to get him by.[10] He was incurably extravagant ;like his father, according to his brother John, and from 1964 he was faced with insolvency. When writing his biography of Queen Mary he lived in Hagnau, Germany where living was cheaper.[12]
His natural rebelliousness was accentuated by his unremitting homosexuality according to James Lees-Milne, but while physically attracted to his own sex he loved the companionship of women, and was sought after by hostesses for his sparkling conversation. His friends were among the most interesting artists, writers and muses of their generation: Cecil Beaton, Clarissa Churchill (later Clarissa Eden, Countess of Avon), Joan Moore (Countess of Drogheda), Viscountess Rothermere (Ann Fleming) and Lees-Milne.[13]
He was a heavy drinker, and frequented back-street bars and shady pubs where he mixed with a rough crowd, associations that eventually contributed to his death when he was brutally killed on 25 January 1974 in his London flat, at 9 Ladbroke Grove, by three young men. He had been acquainted with one of them as part of the
He is buried at Kensal Green Cemetery in London.[18]
Bibliography
- London Fabric (Dustjacket by Eric Ravilious; 1939, revised 1941)
- History Under Fire – 52 Photographs of Air Raid Damage to London Buildings, 1940–41 (With Cecil Beaton; 1941)
- West Indian Summer (1943)
- The Houses of Parliament. Photographed by Hans Wild. (Introduction; 1946)
- America is an Atmosphere (1947)
- The Years of Promise (1949)
- Beautiful London. 103 photographs by Helmut Gernsheim. (Foreword; 1950)
- The Flight of Youth (1951)
- Aspects of Provence (1952)
- The Baths of Absalom (1954)
- Lord Crewe, the Likeness of a Liberal (1955)
- Queen Mary (1959)
- Queen Victoria at Windsor and Balmoral (1959)
- Verandah (1964)
- Sins of the Fathers (1967)
- Half-Crown Colony: A Hong Kong Notebook (1969)
- Anthony Trollope (1971)
- Robert Louis Stevenson (1974)
- A Lonely Business – A Self Portrait of James Pope-Hennessy (1981). Edited by Peter Quennell.
- The Quest for Queen Mary (2018). Edited and with text by Hugo Vickers.
References
- ISSN 0190-8286. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
- ^ Quennell, P., Introduction to A Lonely Business – A Self-Portrait of James Pope-Hennessy, 1981, p. xv.
- ^ Lees-Milne, James, Fourteen Friends, 1996, John Murray Publishers, London, p. 201.
- ^ Hawthornden Prize Winners
- ^ The Life of James Lees-Milne, The Official James Lees-Milne Website. Retrieved 24 March 2011.
- ^ a b Quennell, p. xv.
- ^ Introducing Offaly Archived 17 November 2007 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Lees-Milne, p.207.
- ^ Quennell, p.xiv.
- ^ a b Quennell, p.xviii.
- ^ Banagher
- ^ Pope-Hennessy & Vickers 2018, pp. 28, 34, 35.
- ^ Pope-Hennessy & Vickers 2018, pp. 11, 12.
- ^ Clarke, P.F., Review of The Dictionary of National Biography, 1971–1980 by Lord Blake; C. S. Nicholls, The English Historical Review, Vol. 103, No. 406, p.156, January 1988.
- ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
- ^ "Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Google News Archive Search". news.google.com. Retrieved 5 January 2019.
- ^ Pope-Hennessy & Vickers 2018, p. 28.
- ^ Notable personalities at Kensal Green Cemetery. Archived 16 July 2012 at the Wayback Machine