Peter Quennell
Encyclopedia
Sir Peter Courtney Quennell CBE (9 March 1905, Bickley
, Kent
, England – 27 October 1993, London
) was an English biographer, literary historian, editor, essayist, poet, and critic.
Quennell was the son of architect C. H. B. Quennell
, and his wife, Marjorie Quennell
who wrote extensively on social history. Educated at Berkhamsted Grammar School and at Balliol College, Oxford
, he first practised journalism in London. While still at school some of his poems were selected by Richard Hughes
for the anthology Public School Verse, which brought him to the attention of writers such as Edith Sitwell
.
In 1922 he published his first book, Masques and Poems.This was followed by many other volumes, particularly his Four Portraits of 1945 (studies of Boswell
, Gibbon
, Sterne
, and Wilkes
), books on London and works on Baudelaire
(1929), Byron (1934–35), Pope
(1949), Ruskin
(1949), Hogarth
(1955), Shakespeare
(1963), Proust
(1971) and Dr Johnson
(1972).
In 1930 he taught at the University of Tokyo
. In 1944-51, he was editor of the Cornhill Magazine
and from 1951 to 1979 founder-editor of History Today
.
He published two volumes of autobiography, The Marble Foot (1976) and Wanton Chase (1980). He was married five times, and had two children, a daughter Sarah, from his third marriage and Alexander from his fifth.
He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire
(CBE) and was later knight
ed.
Bickley
Bickley is an affluent residential area and electoral ward in the London Borough of Bromley, England. It is a suburban development situated 10.4 miles south east of Charing Cross...
, 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...
, England – 27 October 1993, London
London
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
) was an English biographer, literary historian, editor, essayist, poet, and critic.
Quennell was the son of architect C. H. B. Quennell
C. H. B. Quennell
Charles Henry Bourne Quennell , was an English architect, designer, illustrator and writer.-Biography:Quennell was the son of a builder and grew up in a house at Cowley Road on the Holland Town Estate, Kennington, London. Bourne was his mother's maiden name...
, and his wife, Marjorie Quennell
Marjorie Quennell
Marjorie Quennell was a British historian, illustrator and museum curator.Her husband was architect Charles Henry Bourne Quennell . They met at the Junior Art Workers Guild...
who wrote extensively on social history. Educated at Berkhamsted Grammar School and at Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College, Oxford
Balliol College , founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in England but founded by a family with strong Scottish connections....
, he first practised journalism in London. While still at school some of his poems were selected by Richard Hughes
Richard Hughes (writer)
Richard Arthur Warren Hughes OBE was a British writer of poems, short stories, novels and plays.He was born in Weybridge, Surrey. His father was a civil servant Arthur Hughes, and his mother Louisa Grace Warren who had been brought up in Jamaica...
for the anthology Public School Verse, which brought him to the attention of writers such as Edith Sitwell
Edith Sitwell
Dame Edith Louisa Sitwell DBE was a British poet and critic.-Background:Edith Sitwell was born in Scarborough, North Yorkshire, the oldest child and only daughter of Sir George Sitwell, 4th Baronet, of Renishaw Hall; he was an expert on genealogy and landscaping...
.
In 1922 he published his first book, Masques and Poems.This was followed by many other volumes, particularly his Four Portraits of 1945 (studies of Boswell
James Boswell
James Boswell, 9th Laird of Auchinleck was a lawyer, diarist, and author born in Edinburgh, Scotland; he is best known for the biography he wrote of one of his contemporaries, the English literary figure Samuel Johnson....
, Gibbon
Edward Gibbon
Edward Gibbon was an English historian and Member of Parliament...
, Sterne
Laurence Sterne
Laurence Sterne was an Irish novelist and an Anglican clergyman. He is best known for his novels The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman, and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy; but he also published many sermons, wrote memoirs, and was involved in local politics...
, and Wilkes
John Wilkes
John Wilkes was an English radical, journalist and politician.He was first elected Member of Parliament in 1757. In the Middlesex election dispute, he fought for the right of voters—rather than the House of Commons—to determine their representatives...
), books on London and works on Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire
Charles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
(1929), Byron (1934–35), Pope
Alexander Pope
Alexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
(1949), Ruskin
John Ruskin
John Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
(1949), Hogarth
William Hogarth
William Hogarth was an English painter, printmaker, pictorial satirist, social critic and editorial cartoonist who has been credited with pioneering western sequential art. His work ranged from realistic portraiture to comic strip-like series of pictures called "modern moral subjects"...
(1955), Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
(1963), Proust
Marcel Proust
Valentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
(1971) and Dr Johnson
Samuel Johnson
Samuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
(1972).
In 1930 he taught at the University of Tokyo
University of Tokyo
, abbreviated as , is a major research university located in Tokyo, Japan. The University has 10 faculties with a total of around 30,000 students, 2,100 of whom are foreign. Its five campuses are in Hongō, Komaba, Kashiwa, Shirokane and Nakano. It is considered to be the most prestigious university...
. In 1944-51, he was editor of the Cornhill Magazine
Cornhill Magazine
The Cornhill Magazine was a Victorian magazine and literary journal named after Cornhill Street in London.Cornhill was founded by George Murray Smith in 1860 and was published until 1975. It was a literary journal with a selection of articles on diverse subjects and serialisations of new novels...
and from 1951 to 1979 founder-editor of History Today
History Today
History Today is an illustrated history magazine. Published monthly in London since January 1951, it is the world's leading, and possibly oldest, history magazine. Its successful mission has always been to present serious and authoritative history to as wide a public as possible...
.
He published two volumes of autobiography, The Marble Foot (1976) and Wanton Chase (1980). He was married five times, and had two children, a daughter Sarah, from his third marriage and Alexander from his fifth.
He was appointed a Commander of the Order 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...
(CBE) and was later knight
Knight
A knight was a member of a class of lower nobility in the High Middle Ages.By the Late Middle Ages, the rank had become associated with the ideals of chivalry, a code of conduct for the perfect courtly Christian warrior....
ed.
Works
- Masques & Poems (1922)
- Oxford Poetry (1924) editor with Harold ActonHarold ActonSir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton CBE 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...
- Poems (1926)
- Inscription on a Fountainhead (1929), poems
- Baudelaire And The Symbolists: Five Essays (1929)
- Memoirs of the Comte de Gramont (1930) with Anthony Hamilton
- The Phoenix Kind (1931)
- A Superficial Journey Through Tokyo and Peking (1932)
- A Letter to Mrs. Virginia WoolfVirginia WoolfAdeline Virginia Woolf was an English author, essayist, publisher, and writer of short stories, regarded as one of the foremost modernist literary figures of the twentieth century....
(Hogarth PressHogarth PressThe Hogarth Press was founded in 1917 by Leonard Woolf and Virginia Woolf. It was named after their house in Richmond, in which they began hand-printing books....
1932) - Aspects of Seventeenth Century Verse (1933), editor
- Byron (1935)
- Somerset (1936), Shell Guide with C.H.B. Quennell
- The Private Letters of Princess Lieven to Prince Metternich 1820–1826 (1937), editor
- Victorian Panorama: a survey of life & fashion from contemporary photographs (1937)
- Sympathy (1938), stories
- To Lord Byron: Feminine Profiles - based upon unpublished letters 1807-1824 (1939) with George Paston
- Caroline of England: An Augustan Portrait (1940)
- Brown the Bear: Who scared the villagers out of their wits (circa 1940), translator Katharine Busvine
- Byron In Italy (1941)
- Byron: the Years of Fame (1943)
- Four Portraits: Studies of the Eighteenth Century - James Boswell, Edward Gibbon, Laurence Sterne, John Wilkes (1945)
- Time Exposure (1946) with Cecil BeatonCecil BeatonSir Cecil Walter Hardy Beaton, CBE was an English fashion and portrait photographer, diarist, painter, interior designer and an Academy Award-winning stage and costume designer for films and the theatre...
- John Ruskin, The Portrait of a Prophet (1949)
- The Pleasures Of Pope (1949)
- Mayhew’s London (1949)
- My Heart Laid Bare and Other Prose Writings by Charles BaudelaireCharles BaudelaireCharles Baudelaire was a French poet who produced notable work as an essayist, art critic, and pioneering translator of Edgar Allan Poe. His most famous work, Les Fleurs du mal expresses the changing nature of beauty in modern, industrializing Paris during the nineteenth century...
(1950), editor, translator Norman CameronNorman CameronNorman Cameron was a Scottish poet, distantly related to Thomas Babington, Lord Macaulay who, between the two world wars, associated on Majorca with Robert Graves and Laura Riding. Later, as a part-time Fitzrovian, he was a colleague of Dylan Thomas, Geoffrey Grigson, Len Lye, John Aldridge RA,... - Byron: A Self-Portrait - Letters and Diaries 1798-1824 (2 Volumes) (1950), editor
- London's Underworld by Henry Mayhew (1951), editor
- Mayhew's Characters (1951)
- The Singular Preference (1952)
- Spring In Sicily (1952), travel book
- Selected writings of John RuskinJohn RuskinJohn Ruskin was the leading English art critic of the Victorian era, also an art patron, draughtsman, watercolourist, a prominent social thinker and philanthropist. He wrote on subjects ranging from geology to architecture, myth to ornithology, literature to education, and botany to political...
(1952), editor - Diversions of History (1954)
- Hogarth's Progress (1955)
- Selected Verse and Prose Works Including Letters and Extracts from Lord Byron's Journal and Diaries, 1959
- The Past We Share. An Illustrated History of the British and American Peoples (1960), with Alan Hodge
- The Sign of the Fish (1960)
- Byronic Thoughts: Maxims Reflections Portraits From the Prose and Verse of Lord Byron (1961)
- Selected Essays of Henry de MontherlantHenry de MontherlantHenry de Montherlant or Henry Marie Joseph Frédéric Expedite Millon de Montherlant was a French essayist, novelist and one of the leading French dramatists of the twentieth century.- Works :...
(1961), editor, John Weightman translator - The Prodigal Rake – memoirs of William Hickey (1962), editor
- Edward LearEdward LearEdward Lear was an English artist, illustrator, author, and poet, renowned today primarily for his literary nonsense, in poetry and prose, and especially his limericks, a form that he popularised.-Biography:...
in Southern Italy: Journals of a Landscape Painter in southern CalabriaCalabriaCalabria , in antiquity known as Bruttium, is a region in southern Italy, south of Naples, located at the "toe" of the Italian Peninsula. The capital city of Calabria is Catanzaro....
and the Kingdom of NaplesKingdom of NaplesThe 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...
(1964), introduction - Alexander PopeAlexander PopeAlexander Pope was an 18th-century English poet, best known for his satirical verse and for his translation of Homer. He is the third-most frequently quoted writer in The Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, after Shakespeare and Tennyson...
: The education of genius 1688-1728 (1968) - Henry De Montherlant, with translator Terence KilmartinTerence KilmartinTerence Kilmartin CBE was an Irish translator who served as the literary editor of The Observer between 1952 and 1986. The most well-known and popular of his translations is his 1981 revision of C. K...
- The Girls, A Tetraology of Novels : The Girls, Pity for Women, The Hippograf & The Lepers
- The Colosseum - a History of Rome from the Time of Nero (1971)
- Shakespeare, a biography (1963)
- The Journal of Thomas Moore (1964) editor
- Who's Who in Shakespeare (1971)
- Casanova in London (1971), essays
- Marcel ProustMarcel ProustValentin Louis Georges Eugène Marcel Proust was a French novelist, critic, and essayist best known for his monumental À la recherche du temps perdu...
, 1871-1922 - A Centennial Volume (1971) - Samuel JohnsonSamuel JohnsonSamuel Johnson , often referred to as Dr. Johnson, was an English author who made lasting contributions to English literature as a poet, essayist, moralist, literary critic, biographer, editor and lexicographer...
- his friends and enemies (1973) - Romantic England Writing And Painting 1717 - 1851 (1970)
- A History of English Literature (1973)
- The Marble Foot: An Autobiography, 1905-1938 (1977)
- The Day Before Yesterday (1978)
- Vladimir NabokovVladimir NabokovVladimir Vladimirovich Nabokov was a multilingual Russian novelist and short story writer. Nabokov wrote his first nine novels in Russian, then rose to international prominence as a master English prose stylist...
, a Tribute (1979) editor - Customs and characters: Contemporary portraits (1982)
- Wanton Chase: An Autobiography from 1939 (1980)
- Genius in the Drawing Room (UK)/Affairs of the Mind: the Salon in Europe and America (1980), editor
- A Lonely Business: A Self-Portrait of James Pope-HennessyJames Pope-HennessyJames Pope Hennessy CVO was a British biographer and travel writer.-Life:Richard James Arthur Pope-Hennessy was born in London on 20 November 1916, the younger son of Ladislaus Herbert Richard Pope-Hennessy, a soldier from County Cork in Ireland, and his wife, Una Constance Pope-Hennessy who was...
(1981) editor - The Selected Essays of Cyril ConnollyCyril ConnollyCyril 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...
(1984) editor - The Last Edwardians: An Illustrated History of Violet TrefusisViolet TrefusisViolet Trefusis née Keppel was an English writer and socialite. She is most notable for her lesbian affair with Vita Sackville-West, which was featured under disguise in Virginia Woolf's Orlando: A Biography....
and Alice KeppelAlice KeppelAlice Frederica Keppel, née Edmonstone was a British socialite and the most famous mistress of Edward VII, the eldest son of Queen Victoria. Her formal style after marriage was The Hon. Mrs George Keppel. Her daughter, Violet Trefusis, was the lover of poet Vita Sackville-West...
(1985) with John Phillips and Lorna SageLorna SageLorna Sage was a Welsh-born academic, as well as an award-winning literary critic and author, known widely for her contribution to the consideration of women's writing.-Biography:... - An Illustrated Companion to World Literature (1986) editor, original Tore Zetterholm
- The Pursuit of Happiness (1988)