Anthony West (4 August 1914 – 27 December 1987) was an English author and literary critic.
Biography
West was born Anthony Panther West Fairfield, the son of British authors
Rebecca West
Dame Cicily Isabel Fairfield (21 December 1892 – 15 March 1983), known as Rebecca West, or Dame Rebecca West, was a British author, journalist, literary critic and travel writer. An author who wrote in many genres, West reviewed books ...
and
H. G. Wells
Herbert George Wells"Wells, H. G." Revised 18 May 2015. '' never married, as Wells was already married to someone else, and remained so until after his intimate relationship with West ended (although they remained friends until his death in 1946).
In 1955, Anthony West wrote a novel ''Heritage'', which was technically fiction, but which dealt with the trials of a boy who grows up largely neglected and ignored by his famous parents. This work was a thinly disguised autobiography (a ''
roman à clef
''Roman à clef'' (, anglicised as ), French for ''novel with a key'', is a novel about real-life events that is overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship b ...
''). In it, his mother appeared much worse than his father, whom he admired all his life. She fell out with him over it, famously threatening to sue if the book was published in Britain. It was not published in Britain until 1984, after she had died. Another one of Anthony West's best-known books is ''H. G. Wells: Aspects of a Life'', a biography of his father.
A critically lauded author, he wrote novels, essays, and nonfiction works, and reviewed books for ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'' from the 1950s until the late 1970s. He won the
Houghton Mifflin
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often v ...
Award for his novel ''The Vintage'' (1949) (published in Britain as ''On a Dark Night''), which Boucher and McComas praised as "a brilliantly terrifying exploration of the theme that each age creates its own peculiar species of hell and Devil". He is also known for works on history such as ''Elizabethan England'', and ''All About the Crusades''.
In 1937, West married Katharine Church; the couple had one son (Edmund West) and one daughter (Caroline Frances West) but divorced in 1952. He later married Lily Emmet.
He died at home in
Stonington, Connecticut
The town of Stonington is located in New London County, Connecticut in the state's southeastern corner. It includes the borough of Stonington, the villages of Pawcatuck, Lords Point, and Wequetequock, and the eastern halves of the villages of ...
at the age of 73 after suffering a
stroke
A stroke is a medical condition in which poor blood flow to the brain causes cell death. There are two main types of stroke: ischemic, due to lack of blood flow, and hemorrhagic, due to bleeding. Both cause parts of the brain to stop funct ...
Amazon * Textbook
* Illustrated by Carl Rose
*
* An examination of the dossiers of three noted 19th-century women, including
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
Anne, alternatively spelled Ann, is a form of the Latin female given name Anna. This in turn is a representation of the Hebrew Hannah, which means 'favour' or 'grace'. Related names include Annie.
Anne is sometimes used as a male name in th ...
, 1766–1817
*
*
* "The son of H. G. Wells and Rebecca West provides a biography of his father, chronicling the great English writer's rise to fame and fortune, his relationships with other famous people, and his numerous affairs".
* "Richard Savage, the illegitimate son of a famous British author and a prominent stage actress, faces the difficulties of growing up in boarding schools and living with one parent at a time".