"The English Eccentrics" 1933 SITWELL, Edith
$500
SITWELL, Edith
[332] pp.
Faber & Faber
1933
9 1/8" x 6"
VG/ VG
'The author would like to express… her sense of the honour conferred on this book by the magnificent cover drawing by Monsier Pavel Tchelitchew.' Edith Sitwell, herself an English eccentric, brings together an appreciative selection of unusual characters from England's history. The book is scarce in its original dust jacket by Pavel Tchelitchew. Sitwell was a patron of Tchelitchew and he painted several portraits of her. The book inspired an opera of the same name, premiered in 1964 and with music by Malcolm Williamson and a libretto by Geoffrey Dunn.
Eccentricity exists particularly in the English, states Dame Edith Sitwell, because of “that peculiar and satisfactory knowledge of infallibility that is the hallmark and the birthright of the British nation.” We find hermits, quacks, mariners, indefatigable travelers, and men of learning. We meet the amphibious Lord Rokeby, whose beard reached his knees and who seldom left his bath; the irascible Captain Thicknesses, who left his right hand, to be cut off after his death, to his son Lord Audley; and Curricle Coats, the Gifted Amateur, whose suit was sewn with diamonds and whose every performance ended in uproar. This is a glorious gallery of the extremes of human nature, portrayed with humor, sympathy, knowledge, and love.