Harold Acton
Encyclopedia
Sir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton CBE
(5 July 1904 – 27 February 1994) was a British
writer, scholar and dilettante perhaps most famous for being wrongly believed to have inspired the character of "Anthony Blanche" in Evelyn Waugh
's novel
Brideshead Revisited
(1945). Waugh himself wrote, "The characters in my novels often wrongly identified with Harold Acton were to a great extent drawn from Brian Howard".
, who was prime minister of Naples
under Ferdinand IV
, and grandfather of the Roman Catholic historian John Acton
. However, the basis of this has been disputed.
Harold was in fact the great-great grandson of Sir John's younger brother Joseph Acton (1 Oct 1737-12 Jan 1830) via his eldest son Charles.
His father was the art collector and dealer Arthur Acton (1873–1953), his mother Hortense Mitchell (1871–1962), heiress to a prominent Chicago
banking family. The Mitchell fortune allowed Arthur to buy the remarkable Villa La Pietra on the hills of Florence
, where Harold lived for much of his life. The only modern furniture in the villa was in the nurseries, and that was disposed of when the children got older (Harold's younger brother William was born in 1906).
His early schooling was at Miss Penrose's private school in Florence. In 1913 his parents sent him to Wixenford preparatory school near Reading in southern England, where Kenneth Clark
was a fellow-pupil. By 1916 submarine attacks on shipping had made the journey to England unsafe and so Harold and his brother were sent in September to Chateau de Lancy, an international school near Geneva. In the autumn of 1917 he went to a 'crammer' at Ashlawn in Kent
, in order to be prepared for Eton
, which he entered on 1 May 1918. Among his contemporaries at Eton were Eric Blair (the writer George Orwell
), Cyril Connolly
, Robert Byron
, Alec Douglas-Home
, Ian Fleming
, Brian Howard, Oliver Messel
, Anthony Powell
, Henry Yorke (the novelist Henry Green
). In his final years at school Harold became a founding member of the Eton Arts Society, and eleven of his poems appeared in The Eton Candle, edited by his friend Brian Howard.
In October 1923 Harold went up to Oxford
to read Modern Greats at Christ Church
. It was from the balcony of his rooms in Meadow Buildings that he declaimed passages from The Waste Land
through a megaphone, an episode recalled in Brideshead Revisited which Waugh gives to the character of Anthony Blanche. While at Oxford he co-founded the avant garde magazine The Oxford Broom, and published his first book of poems, Aquarium (1923).
In 1926 he acted as a special constable during the General Strike
, apolitical as he was, and took his degree. In October he took an apartment in Paris
, at 29 Quai de Bourbon, and had his portrait painted by Pavel Tchelitcheff.
Moving between Paris and London in the next few years, Harold sought to find his voice as a writer. In 1927 he began work on a novel, and a third book of poems, Five Saints and an Appendix, came out early the following year. This was followed by a prose fable, Cornelian, in March. In July Harold acted as Best Man at the wedding of Evelyn Waugh to the Honourable Evelyn Gardner. Waugh’s Decline and Fall bore a dedication to Harold ‘in Homage and Affection’, but when Harold’s own novel – disastrously entitled Humdrum – appeared in October 1928, it was slated in comparison with Decline and Fall by critics such as Cyril Connolly.
In the later 1920s Harold frequented the London salon of Lady Cunard
, where at various times he encountered Ezra Pound
, Joseph Duveen and the Irish novelist George Moore
. On visits to Florence he cemented his friendship with Norman Douglas
, who wrote an introduction to Harold’s translation of a lubricious 18th-century memoir of Giangastone de’ Medici, The Last of the Medici, privately printed in Florence in 1930 as part of the Lungarno Series. A fourth collection of poems, This Chaos, was published in Paris by Harold’s friend Nancy Cunard, though the Giangastone translation pointed in a more promising direction. History was indeed to prove far more congenial to Harold than poetry. His The Last Medici (not to be confused with the earlier book of similar title) was published by Faber in 1932, the first of a series of distinguished contributions to Italian historical studies.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/shadow-of-the-last-aesthete-1304745.html
Acton's non- historical works include four volumes of poetry, three novels, two novellas, two volumes of short stories, two volumes of autobiography and a memoir of his friend Nancy Mitford
, who was his exact contemporary. His historical works include The Last Medici, a study of the later Medici Grand Dukes, and two large volumes on the House of Bourbon
, rulers of the Kingdom of Naples
in the 18th and earlier 19th century, which together may be said to constitute his magnum opus.
In 1974 he was named a Knight Commander of the British Empire
(KBE). When he died he left Villa La Pietra to New York University
.
Following his death, DNA
testing confirmed the existence of an illegitimate half-sister, whose heirs have gone to court to challenge Acton's $500 million bequest to New York University
.
Acton was buried beside his parents and brother in the Roman Catholic section of the Cimitero Evangelico degli Allori in the southern suburb of Florence
, Galluzzo
(Italy
).
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(5 July 1904 – 27 February 1994) was a British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
writer, scholar and dilettante perhaps most famous for being wrongly believed to have inspired the character of "Anthony Blanche" in Evelyn Waugh
Evelyn Waugh
Arthur Evelyn St. John Waugh , known as Evelyn Waugh, was an English writer of novels, travel books and biographies. He was also a prolific journalist and reviewer...
's novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited
Brideshead Revisited, The Sacred & Profane Memories of Captain Charles Ryder is a novel by English writer Evelyn Waugh, first published in 1945. Waugh wrote that the novel "deals with what is theologically termed 'the operation of Grace', that is to say, the unmerited and unilateral act of love by...
(1945). Waugh himself wrote, "The characters in my novels often wrongly identified with Harold Acton were to a great extent drawn from Brian Howard".
Life
Acton was born into a prominent Anglo-Italian family at Villa La Pietra, his parents' house one mile outside the walls of Florence, Italy. He claimed that his great-great-grandfather was Commodore Sir John ActonSir John Acton, 6th Baronet
Sir John Francis Edward Acton, 6th Baronet was commander of the naval forces of Grand Duchy of Tuscany and prime minister of Naples under Ferdinand IV....
, who was prime minister of Naples
Naples
Naples is a city in Southern Italy, situated on the country's west coast by the Gulf of Naples. Lying between two notable volcanic regions, Mount Vesuvius and the Phlegraean Fields, it is the capital of the region of Campania and of the province of Naples...
under Ferdinand IV
Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies
Ferdinand I reigned variously over Naples, Sicily, and the Two Sicilies from 1759 until his death. He was the third son of King Charles III of Spain by his wife Maria Amalia of Saxony. On 10 August 1759, Charles succeeded his elder brother, Ferdinand VI, as King Charles III of Spain...
, and grandfather of the Roman Catholic historian John Acton
John Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton
John Emerich Edward Dalberg-Acton, 1st Baron Acton, KCVO, DL , known as Sir John Dalberg-Acton, 8th Bt from 1837 to 1869 and usually referred to simply as Lord Acton, was an English Catholic historian, politician, and writer...
. However, the basis of this has been disputed.
His father was the art collector and dealer Arthur Acton (1873–1953), his mother Hortense Mitchell (1871–1962), heiress to a prominent Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
banking family. The Mitchell fortune allowed Arthur to buy the remarkable Villa La Pietra on the hills of Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, where Harold lived for much of his life. The only modern furniture in the villa was in the nurseries, and that was disposed of when the children got older (Harold's younger brother William was born in 1906).
His early schooling was at Miss Penrose's private school in Florence. In 1913 his parents sent him to Wixenford preparatory school near Reading in southern England, where Kenneth Clark
Kenneth Clark
Kenneth McKenzie Clark, Baron Clark, OM, CH, KCB, FBA was a British author, museum director, broadcaster, and one of the best-known art historians of his generation...
was a fellow-pupil. By 1916 submarine attacks on shipping had made the journey to England unsafe and so Harold and his brother were sent in September to Chateau de Lancy, an international school near Geneva. In the autumn of 1917 he went to a 'crammer' at Ashlawn in Kent
Kent
Kent is a county in southeast England, and is one of the home counties. It borders East Sussex, Surrey and Greater London and has a defined boundary with Essex in the middle of the Thames Estuary. The ceremonial county boundaries of Kent include the shire county of Kent and the unitary borough of...
, in order to be prepared for Eton
Eton College
Eton College, often referred to simply as Eton, is a British independent school for boys aged 13 to 18. It was founded in 1440 by King Henry VI as "The King's College of Our Lady of Eton besides Wyndsor"....
, which he entered on 1 May 1918. Among his contemporaries at Eton were Eric Blair (the writer George Orwell
George Orwell
Eric Arthur Blair , better known by his pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist...
), Cyril Connolly
Cyril Connolly
Cyril Vernon Connolly was an English intellectual, literary critic and writer. He was the editor of the influential literary magazine Horizon and wrote Enemies of Promise , which combined literary criticism with an autobiographical exploration of why he failed to become the successful author of...
, Robert Byron
Robert Byron
Robert Byron was a British travel writer, best known for his travelogue The Road to Oxiana. He was also a noted writer, art critic and historian....
, Alec Douglas-Home
Alec Douglas-Home
Alexander Frederick Douglas-Home, Baron Home of the Hirsel, KT, PC , known as The Earl of Home from 1951 to 1963 and as Sir Alec Douglas-Home from 1963 to 1974, was a British Conservative politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from October 1963 to October 1964.He is the last...
, Ian Fleming
Ian Fleming
Ian Lancaster Fleming was a British author, journalist and Naval Intelligence Officer.Fleming is best known for creating the fictional British spy James Bond and for a series of twelve novels and nine short stories about the character, one of the biggest-selling series of fictional books of...
, Brian Howard, Oliver Messel
Oliver Messel
Oliver Hilary Sambourne Messel was an English artist and one of the foremost stage designers of the 20th century....
, Anthony Powell
Anthony Powell
Anthony Dymoke Powell CH, CBE was an English novelist best known for his twelve-volume work A Dance to the Music of Time, published between 1951 and 1975....
, Henry Yorke (the novelist Henry Green
Henry Green
Henry Green was the nom de plume of Henry Vincent Yorke , an English author best remembered for the novel Loving, which was featured by Time in its list of the 100 Best English-language Novels from 1923 to 2005.- Biography :Green was born near Tewkesbury, Gloucestershire, into an educated family...
). In his final years at school Harold became a founding member of the Eton Arts Society, and eleven of his poems appeared in The Eton Candle, edited by his friend Brian Howard.
In October 1923 Harold went up to Oxford
University of Oxford
The University of Oxford is a university located in Oxford, United Kingdom. It is the second-oldest surviving university in the world and the oldest in the English-speaking world. Although its exact date of foundation is unclear, there is evidence of teaching as far back as 1096...
to read Modern Greats at Christ Church
Christ Church, Oxford
Christ Church or house of Christ, and thus sometimes known as The House), is one of the largest constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England...
. It was from the balcony of his rooms in Meadow Buildings that he declaimed passages from The Waste Land
The Waste Land
The Waste Land[A] is a 434-line[B] modernist poem by T. S. Eliot published in 1922. It has been called "one of the most important poems of the 20th century." Despite the poem's obscurity—its shifts between satire and prophecy, its abrupt and unannounced changes of speaker, location and time, its...
through a megaphone, an episode recalled in Brideshead Revisited which Waugh gives to the character of Anthony Blanche. While at Oxford he co-founded the avant garde magazine The Oxford Broom, and published his first book of poems, Aquarium (1923).
In 1926 he acted as a special constable during the General Strike
General strike
A general strike is a strike action by a critical mass of the labour force in a city, region, or country. While a general strike can be for political goals, economic goals, or both, it tends to gain its momentum from the ideological or class sympathies of the participants...
, apolitical as he was, and took his degree. In October he took an apartment in Paris
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
, at 29 Quai de Bourbon, and had his portrait painted by Pavel Tchelitcheff.
Moving between Paris and London in the next few years, Harold sought to find his voice as a writer. In 1927 he began work on a novel, and a third book of poems, Five Saints and an Appendix, came out early the following year. This was followed by a prose fable, Cornelian, in March. In July Harold acted as Best Man at the wedding of Evelyn Waugh to the Honourable Evelyn Gardner. Waugh’s Decline and Fall bore a dedication to Harold ‘in Homage and Affection’, but when Harold’s own novel – disastrously entitled Humdrum – appeared in October 1928, it was slated in comparison with Decline and Fall by critics such as Cyril Connolly.
In the later 1920s Harold frequented the London salon of Lady Cunard
Maud Cunard
Maud Alice Burke , later Lady Cunard, known as Emerald, was an American-born, London-based society hostess. She had long relationships with the novelist George Moore and the conductor Thomas Beecham, and was the muse of the former and a champion of and fund-raiser for the latter...
, where at various times he encountered Ezra Pound
Ezra Pound
Ezra Weston Loomis Pound was an American expatriate poet and critic and a major figure in the early modernist movement in poetry...
, Joseph Duveen and the Irish novelist George Moore
George Moore (novelist)
George Augustus Moore was an Irish novelist, short-story writer, poet, art critic, memoirist and dramatist. Moore came from a Roman Catholic landed family who lived at Moore Hall in Carra, County Mayo. He originally wanted to be a painter, and studied art in Paris during the 1870s...
. On visits to Florence he cemented his friendship with Norman Douglas
Norman Douglas
George Norman Douglas was a British writer, now best known for his 1917 novel South Wind.-Life:Norman Douglas was born in Thüringen, Austria . His mother was Vanda von Poellnitz...
, who wrote an introduction to Harold’s translation of a lubricious 18th-century memoir of Giangastone de’ Medici, The Last of the Medici, privately printed in Florence in 1930 as part of the Lungarno Series. A fourth collection of poems, This Chaos, was published in Paris by Harold’s friend Nancy Cunard, though the Giangastone translation pointed in a more promising direction. History was indeed to prove far more congenial to Harold than poetry. His The Last Medici (not to be confused with the earlier book of similar title) was published by Faber in 1932, the first of a series of distinguished contributions to Italian historical studies.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/shadow-of-the-last-aesthete-1304745.html
Work
Nancy Mitford
Nancy Freeman-Mitford, CBE , styled The Hon. Nancy Mitford before her marriage and The Hon. Mrs Peter Rodd thereafter, was an English novelist and biographer, one of the Bright Young People on the London social scene in the inter-war years...
, who was his exact contemporary. His historical works include The Last Medici, a study of the later Medici Grand Dukes, and two large volumes on the House of Bourbon
House of Bourbon
The House of Bourbon is a European royal house, a branch of the Capetian dynasty . Bourbon kings first ruled Navarre and France in the 16th century. By the 18th century, members of the Bourbon dynasty also held thrones in Spain, Naples, Sicily, and Parma...
, rulers of the Kingdom of Naples
Kingdom of Naples
The Kingdom of Naples, comprising the southern part of the Italian peninsula, was the remainder of the old Kingdom of Sicily after secession of the island of Sicily as a result of the Sicilian Vespers rebellion of 1282. Known to contemporaries as the Kingdom of Sicily, it is dubbed Kingdom of...
in the 18th and earlier 19th century, which together may be said to constitute his magnum opus.
In 1974 he was named a Knight Commander of the British Empire
Order of the British Empire
The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is an order of chivalry established on 4 June 1917 by George V of the United Kingdom. The Order comprises five classes in civil and military divisions...
(KBE). When he died he left Villa La Pietra to New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
.
Following his death, DNA
DNA
Deoxyribonucleic acid is a nucleic acid that contains the genetic instructions used in the development and functioning of all known living organisms . The DNA segments that carry this genetic information are called genes, but other DNA sequences have structural purposes, or are involved in...
testing confirmed the existence of an illegitimate half-sister, whose heirs have gone to court to challenge Acton's $500 million bequest to New York University
New York University
New York University is a private, nonsectarian research university based in New York City. NYU's main campus is situated in the Greenwich Village section of Manhattan...
.
Acton was buried beside his parents and brother in the Roman Catholic section of the Cimitero Evangelico degli Allori in the southern suburb of Florence
Florence
Florence is the capital city of the Italian region of Tuscany and of the province of Florence. It is the most populous city in Tuscany, with approximately 370,000 inhabitants, expanding to over 1.5 million in the metropolitan area....
, Galluzzo
Galluzzo
Galluzzo is a suburb of Florence, Italy, located in the southern extremity of the Florentine commune. It is known for the celebrated Carthusian monastery, the Galluzzo or Florence Charterhouse , which was founded in 1342 by Niccolò Acciaioli.- History :- The autonomous commune :Galluzzo was an...
(Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
).
Published works
- Aquarium, London, Duckworth, 1923
- An Indian Ass, London, Duckworth, 1925.
- Five Saints and an Appendix, London, Holden, 1927.
- Cornelian, London, The Westminster Press, 1928.
- Humdrum, London, The Westminster Press, 1928.
- The Last of the Medici, Florence, G. Orioli, 1930.
- The Last Medici, London, Faber & Faner, 1932.
- Modern Chinese Poetry (with Ch'en Shih-Hsiang), Duckworth, 1936.
- Famous Chinese Plays (with L.C. Arlington), Peiping, Henri Vetch, 1937.
- Glue and Lacquer: Four Cautionary Tales (with Lee Yi-Hsieh), London, The Golden Cockerel Press, 1941.
- Peonies and Ponies, London, Chatto & Windus, 1941.
- Memoirs of an Aesthete, London, Methuen, 1948.
- Prince Isidore, London, Methuen, 1950.
- The Bourbons of Naples (1734-1825), London, Methuen, 1956.
- Ferdinando Galiani, Rome, Edizioni di Storia e di Letteratura, 1960.
- Florence (with Martin Huerlimann), London, Thames & Hudson, 1960.
- The Last Bourbons of Naples (1825-1861), London, Methuen, 1961.
- Old Lamps for New, London, Methuen, 1965.
- More Memoirs of an Aesthete, London, Methuen, 1970.
- This Chaos, Paris, Hours Press, 1930.
- Tit for Tat, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1972.
- Tuscan Villas, London, Thames & Hudson, 1973.
- Nancy Mitford: a Memoir, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1975.
- The Peach Blossom Fan (with Ch'en Shih-Hsiang), Berkeley, University of California Press, 1976.
- The Pazzi Conspiracy, London, Thames & Hudson, 1979.
- The Soul's Gymnasium, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1982.
- Three Extraordinary Ambassadors, London, Thames & Hudson, 1984.
- Florence: a Travellers' Companion (introduction; texts ed Edward Chaney), London, Constable, 1986.
Research Resources
- Harold Acton Papers, 1904-1994 (3.83 linear feet) are housed at Yale UniversityYale UniversityYale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript LibraryBeinecke Rare Book and Manuscript LibraryYale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library was a 1963 gift of the Beinecke family. The building was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft of the firm of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, and is the largest building in the world reserved exclusively for the preservation of rare books...
.
- Harold Acton Correspondence with Ruth Page and Thomas H. Fisher, 1948-1952 are housed at the New York Public LibraryNew York Public LibraryThe New York Public Library is the largest public library in North America and is one of the United States' most significant research libraries...
.
- Harold Mario Mithcell Acton Autograph Letter Signed: Florence, to Herbert Cahoon, 1961 June 18 (1 item (4 pages)) is housed at the Pierpont Morgan Library.
- Robin McDouall Papers, circa 1933-1980 (0.25 linear ft.) are housed at Yale UniversityYale UniversityYale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript LibraryBeinecke Rare Book and Manuscript LibraryYale University's Beinecke Rare Book and Manuscript Library was a 1963 gift of the Beinecke family. The building was designed by architect Gordon Bunshaft of the firm of Skidmore, Owings, and Merrill, and is the largest building in the world reserved exclusively for the preservation of rare books...
.