Arthur Calder-Marshall (19 August 1908 – 17 April 1992) was an English novelist, essayist, critic,

memoirist A memoir (; , ) is any nonfiction narrative writing based in the author's personal memories. The assertions made in the work are thus understood to be factual. While memoir has historically been defined as a subcategory of biography or autobiog ...

, and biographer.

Life and career

Calder-Marshall was born in El Misti, Woodcote Road, Wallington, Surrey, the son of Alice (Poole) and Arthur Grotjan Marshall (later Calder-Marshall; 1875 –1958), a civil engineer. The elder Arthur was grandson of the sculptor William Calder Marshall (1813–1894). William Calder Marshall's father William Marshall (1780–1859), D.L. (Edinburgh), a goldsmith (including to the King in the early nineteenth century) and jeweller, had married Annie, daughter of merchant William Calder,

Lord Provost of Edinburgh The Right Honourable Lord Provost of Edinburgh is the convener of the City of Edinburgh local authority, who is elected by the city council and serves not only as the chair of that body, but as a figurehead for the entire city, ex officio the ...

1810-11, by his wife Agnes, a daughter of landed gentleman Hugh Dalrymple. The Marshall family were Episcopalian goldsmiths from Perthshire; the Calder family were merchants. A short, unhappy stint teaching English at Denstone College, Staffordshire, 1931–33, inspired his novel ''Dead Centre''. In the 1930s, Calder-Marshall adopted strong left-wing views. He joined the Communist Party of Great Britain and was also a member of the London-based left-wing Writers and Readers Group which also included

Randall Swingler Randall Carline Swingler MM (28 May 1909 – 19 June 1967) was an English poet, writing extensively in the 1930s in the communist interest. Early life and education His was a prosperous upper middle class Anglican family in Aldershot, with an ...

, Sylvia Townsend Warner,

Mulk Raj Anand Mulk Raj Anand (12 December 1905 – 28 September 2004) was an Indian writer in English, recognised for his depiction of the lives of the poorer castes in traditional Indian society. One of the pioneers of Indo-Anglian fiction, he, togethe ...

, Maurice Richardson and

Rose Macaulay Dame Emilie Rose Macaulay, (1 August 1881 – 30 October 1958) was an English writer, most noted for her award-winning novel '' The Towers of Trebizond'', about a small Anglo-Catholic group crossing Turkey by camel. The story is seen as a spiritu ...

. In 1937, Calder-Marshall wrote scripts for

MGM Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc., also known as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures and abbreviated as MGM, is an American film, television production, distribution and media company owned by Amazon through MGM Holdings, founded on April 17, 1924 a ...

although none appears to have been filmed. Calder-Marshall's fiction and non-fiction covered a wide range of subjects. He himself remarked, "I have never written two books on the same subject or with the same object." In the 1960s, Calder-Marshall took on commissioned work which included a

novelisation A novelization (or novelisation) is a derivative novel that adapts the story of a work created for another medium, such as a film, TV series, stage play, comic book or video game. Film novelizations were particularly popular before the advent ...

of the Dirk Bogarde film ''Victim''. He has additionally been proposed as the author of '' The Adventures of James Bond Junior 003½'' a children's novel about British spy

James Bond The ''James Bond'' series focuses on a fictional British Secret Service agent created in 1953 by writer Ian Fleming, who featured him in twelve novels and two short-story collections. Since Fleming's death in 1964, eight other authors have ...

's nephew, published under the pseudonym R. D. Mascott. With his wife, documentary screenplay-writer Ara (born Violet Nancy Sales), he was the father of the actress

Anna Calder-Marshall Anna Calder-Marshall (born 11 January 1947) is an English stage, film and television actress. Personal life Calder-Marshall was born in Kensington, London, and is the daughter of the novelist and essayist Arthur Calder-Marshall and documentary ...

and the grandfather of the actor Tom Burke.

Media adaptations

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

adapted '' The Way to Santiago'' in 1941 for

RKO RKO Radio Pictures Inc., commonly known as RKO Pictures or simply RKO, was an American film production and distribution company, one of the "Big Five" film studios of Hollywood's Golden Age. The business was formed after the Keith-Albee-Orpheu ...

. However Welles's troubles with the studio meant that no film got made. James Mason purchased the film rights to ''Occasion of Glory'', intending to make this project his directorial debut. Mason hired Christopher Isherwood to write the script.

Bibliography

Biography

"The Enthusiast; An Enquiry into the Life Beliefs and Character of the Rev. Joseph Leycester Lyne alias Fr. Ignatius, O.S.B., Abbot of Elm Hill, Norwich and Llanthony Wales" (1962, Faber and Faber; Facsimile reprint 2000, Llanerch Publishers, Felinfach)

Adult fiction

Novels: *''Two of a Kind'' (1933) *''About Levy'' (1933) *''At Sea'' (1934) *''Dead Centre'' (1935) *''Pie in the Sky'' (1937) *'' The Way to Santiago'' (1940) *''A Man Reprieved'' (1949) *''Occasion of Glory'' (1955) *''The Scarlet Boy'' (1961) Short fiction: *''Crime Against Cania'' (1934) *''A Pink Doll'' (1935) *''A Date with a Duchess'' (1937) Play: *''Season of Goodwill'' (1965) (based on ''Every Third Thought'' by Dorothea Malm) Some authorities attribute this work to Arthur Marshall (broadcaster). As William Drummond: *''

Midnight Lace ''Midnight Lace'' is a 1960 American neo noir mystery thriller film directed by David Miller and starring Doris Day, Rex Harrison, and John Gavin. The plot centers on a woman who is threatened by an anonymous stalker but has a hard time convin ...

'' (1960) (novelisation) *''

Victim Victim(s) or The Victim may refer to: People * Crime victim * Victim, in psychotherapy, a posited role in the Karpman drama triangle model of transactional analysis Films and television * ''The Victim'' (1916 film), an American silent film by ...

'' 1961 (novelisation) *''

Life for Ruth ''Life for Ruth'' is a 1962 British drama film produced by Michael Relph directed by Basil Dearden and starring Michael Craig, Patrick McGoohan and Janet Munro. It was released in the US as Walk in the Shadow. Plot John Harris finds himself o ...

'' 1962 (novelisation) *''

Night Must Fall ''Night Must Fall'' is a play, a psychological thriller, by Emlyn Williams, first performed in 1935. There have been three film adaptations, '' Night Must Fall'' (1937); a 1954 adaptation on the television anthology series ''Ponds Theater'' sta ...

'' 1964 (novelisation) *''

Gaslight Gas lighting is the production of artificial light from combustion of a gaseous fuel, such as hydrogen, methane, carbon monoxide, propane, butane, acetylene, ethylene, coal gas (town gas) or natural gas. The light is produced either direct ...

'' 1966 (novelisation)

Children's fiction

*''The Man from Devil's Island'' (1958) *''The Fair to Middling'' (1959)

Adult non-fiction

Memoirs *''The Magic of My Youth'' (1951) Travel *''Glory Dead'' (Trinidad) (1939) *''The Watershed'' (Yugoslavia) (1947) Miscellany *(With Edward J. H. O'Brien and J. Davenport) ''The Guest Book'' (1935 and 1936) *''Challenge to Schools: A Pamphlet on Public School Education'' (1935) *''The Changing Scene'' (essays on English society) (1937) *(With others) ''Writing in Revolt: Theory and Examples'' (1937) *''The Book Front'' (1947) *''No Earthly Command'' (biography of Alexander Riall Wadham Woods) (1957) *''Havelock Ellis: A Biography'' (1959) US title ''The Sage of Sex: A Life of Havelock Ellis'' (1960) *''The Enthusiast'' (biography of

Joseph Leycester Lyne Joseph Leycester Lyne, known by his religious name as Father Ignatius of Jesus ( – ), was an Anglican Benedictine monk. He commenced a movement to reintroduce monasticism into the Church of England. Early life Lyne was born in Trinity ...

) (1962) *''The Innocent Eye'' (biography of Robert Flaherty) (1963) *''Wish You Were Here: The Art of Donald McGill'' (1966) *''Lewd, Blasphemous, and Obscene: Being the Trials and Tribulations of Sundry Founding Fathers of Today's Alternative Societies'' (1972) *''The Grand Century of the Lady'' (1976) *''The Two Duchesses'' (1978)

Children's non-fiction

*''Lone Wolf: The Story of Jack London'' (1963)

Editor

Calder-Marshall edited and wrote the introduction to: *''Tobias Smollett'' (1950) *''The Bodley Head Jack London'' (four volumes: 1963–66) *''Prepare to Shed Them Now: The Ballads of George R. Sims'' (1968) *''Thomas Paine, The Rights of Man and Other Writings'' (1970)

References

Additional sources

*''The Reader's Companion to Twentieth-Century Writers'', Frank Kermode, Peter Parker eds. (London: Fourth Estate, 1995), page 126 *''Contemporary Authors New Revision Series'', volume 72, Gale. *''St. James Guide to Horror, Ghost & Gothic Writers'', David Pringle, (St. James Press, 1998) *''Science Fiction and Fantasy Literature: Volume 2'', R. Reginald, Douglas Menville, Mary A. Burgess (Wildside Press LLC, 2010), pp. 840–1

External links

*
Article about ''The Fair to Middling''
{{DEFAULTSORT:Calder-Marshall, Arthur 1908 births 1992 deaths Alumni of Hertford College, Oxford 20th-century English novelists 20th-century biographers English essayists English biographers English memoirists People from Wallington, London English male screenwriters English critics 20th-century essayists English male non-fiction writers 20th-century English screenwriters Calder Marshall family 20th-century English male writers