Poet and biographer. Born at Scarborough into the aristocracy. 6-foot tall, with elongated features she added to the effect with her exuberant flowing and ornate clothing. Her poetry was avant garde and concerned with musicality. Her performance of Façade in 1923 has been described as early white rap or like a "happening" from the 60s, and attracted the same response - bemusement. Noel Coward's review caused her to refuse to speak to him for 40 years. But she gradually gained respect and, when she and her brother Osbert toured America they were a great success, especially with the stars in Hollywood. She was early to promote the work of Dylan Thomas. In WW2 she contributed to the war effort by knitting clothes for friends in the forces, including Alec Guinness.
Died, unmarried at St Thomas's Hospital. Her nephew, Francis, was her literary executor.
There is a wonderful 1943 portrait of her by Wyndham Lewis.
This section lists the memorials where the subject on this page is commemorated:
Dame Edith Sitwell
Commemorated ati
Edith Sitwell
English Heritage Dame Edith Sitwell, 1887 - 1964, poet lived here in Flat 42.
Virtues - Sixth Sense
Edith Sitwell reads a book while blithely crossing a chasm on a bridge made o...
Other Subjects
Elizabeth Bowen
Writer. Born Elizabeth Dorothea Cole at 15 Herbert Place, Dublin. Educated in England, she published her first collection of stories, 'Encounters' in 1923. Her best known novels include 'The Death ...
Samuel Smiles
Author and chartist supporter. Born in the High Street, Haddington, East Lothian, Scotland. He studied medicine before becoming a newspaper editor. Best known for his work 'Self-Help' which promote...
Joseph Conrad
Novelist, considered one of the greatest writers in English, despite it not being his mother-tongue. Born into a noble Polish family in what is now Ukraine. Working on ships he came to Britain in 1...
George Meredith
Novelist and poet. Born at 73 High Street, Portsmouth, Hampshire. As a writer of novels and poems, his income was uncertain and he supplemented it as a publisher's reader. In this capacity he befri...
James Boswell
Born Edinburgh, died London. Known for his two-volume biography 'The Life Of Samuel Johnson' (1791).
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