Percy Lubbock, CBE (4 June 1879 – 1 August 1965) was an English

man of letters An intellectual is a person who engages in critical thinking, research, and Human self-reflection, reflection about the reality of society, and who proposes solutions for the normative problems of society. Coming from the world of culture, ei ...

, known as an essayist, critic and biographer. His controversial book ''The Craft of Fiction'' gained influence in the 1920s.

Life

Percy Lubbock was the son of the merchant banker Frederic Lubbock (1844–1927) and his wife Catherine (1848–1934), daughter of John

Gurney A stretcher, gurney, litter, or pram is an apparatus used for moving patients who require medical care. A basic type (cot or litter) must be carried by two or more people. A wheeled stretcher (known as a gurney, trolley, bed or cart) is often ...

(1809–1856) of

Earlham Hall Earlham Hall is a country house in Norfolk, England. It is located just to the west of the city of Norwich, on Earlham Road, on the outskirts of the village of Earlham. For generations it was the home of the Gurney family. The Gurneys were kn ...

, Norfolk, who was a member of an influential Norwich banking family. ''Earlham'', Percy Lubbock's memoir of childhood summer holidays spent at his maternal grandfather's house, was to win him the

James Tait Black Memorial Prize The James Tait Black Memorial Prizes are literary prizes awarded for literature written in the English language. They, along with the Hawthornden Prize, are Britain's oldest literary awards. Based at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, Uni ...

in 1922. His father, Frederic Lubbock, was also a banker, a son of

Sir John Lubbock, 3rd Baronet Sir John William Lubbock, 3rd Baronet FRS (26 March 1803 – 21 June 1865) was an English banker, barrister, mathematician and astronomer. Life He was born in Westminster, the son of Sir John William Lubbock, of the Lubbock & Co bank. He w ...

, and a younger brother of

John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury John Lubbock, 1st Baron Avebury, 4th Baronet, (30 April 183428 May 1913), known as Sir John Lubbock, 4th Baronet from 1865 until 1900, was an English banker, Liberal politician, philanthropist, scientist and polymath. Lubbock worked in his fa ...

, brought up at Emmetts near Ide Hill in Kent. He was educated at

Eton College Eton College () is a Public school (United Kingdom), public school in Eton, Berkshire, England. It was founded in 1440 by Henry VI of England, Henry VI under the name ''Kynge's College of Our Ladye of Eton besyde Windesore'',Nevill, p. 3 ff. i ...

and

King's College, Cambridge King's College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. Formally The King's College of Our Lady and Saint Nicholas in Cambridge, the college lies beside the River Cam and faces out onto King's Parade in the centre of the cit ...

. He later became a Fellow of

Magdalene College, Cambridge Magdalene College ( ) is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge. The college was founded in 1428 as a Benedictine hostel, in time coming to be known as Buckingham College, before being refounded in 1542 as the College of St Ma ...

, where he was Pepys Librarian. Lubbock set up home at Gli Scafari, a villa on the

Gulf of Spezia The Gulf of La Spezia (Italian: ''Golfo della Spezia'' or ''Golfo dei poeti'') is a body of water on the north-western coast of Italy and part of the northern Tyrrhenian Sea, specifically of Ligurian Sea. It measures some 4.5 (length) by 3-3.5 (wi ...

Quentin Crewe Quentin Hugh Crewe (14 November 1926 – 14 November 1998) was an English journalist, author, restaurateur and adventurer. He wrote regularly for the ''Evening Standard'', ''Queen'' magazine, the ''Daily Mail'' and ''Sunday Mirror,'' among othe ...

. Well-placed socially, his intellectual connections included his Cambridge contemporary E. M. Forster,

Edith Wharton Edith Wharton (; born Edith Newbold Jones; January 24, 1862 – August 11, 1937) was an American novelist, short story writer, and interior designer. Wharton drew upon her insider's knowledge of the upper-class New York "aristocracy" to portray ...

(he was a member of her ''Inner Circle'' from about 1906), Howard Sturgis and

Bernard Berenson Bernard Berenson (June 26, 1865 – October 6, 1959) was an American art historian specializing in the Renaissance. His book ''The Drawings of the Florentine Painters'' was an international success. His wife Mary is thought to have had a large ...

. Other Cambridge friends included the singer Clive Carey.

Writing

Lubbock reviewed anonymously in the columns of ''

The Times Literary Supplement ''The Times Literary Supplement'' (''TLS'') is a weekly literary review published in London by News UK, a subsidiary of News Corp. History The ''TLS'' first appeared in 1902 as a supplement to ''The Times'' but became a separate publication ...

'' some significant modern novels, including Forster's ''

Howards End ''Howards End'' is a novel by E. M. Forster, first published in 1910, about social conventions, codes of conduct and relationships in turn-of-the-century England. ''Howards End'' is considered by many to be Forster's masterpiece. The book was ...

''. His 1921 book ''The Craft of Fiction'' ("the official textbook of the

Modernist Modernism is both a philosophy, philosophical and arts movement that arose from broad transformations in Western world, Western society during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The movement reflected a desire for the creation of new fo ...

aesthetics of indirection") became a

straw man A straw man (sometimes written as strawman) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy of having the impression of refuting an argument, whereas the real subject of the argument was not addressed or refuted, but instead replaced with a false o ...

for writers including Forster,

Virginia Woolf Adeline Virginia Woolf (; ; 25 January 1882 28 March 1941) was an English writer, considered one of the most important modernist 20th-century authors and a pioneer in the use of stream of consciousness as a narrative device. Woolf was born ...

and

Graham Greene Henry Graham Greene (2 October 1904 – 3 April 1991) was an English writer and journalist regarded by many as one of the leading English novelists of the 20th century. Combining literary acclaim with widespread popularity, Greene acquir ...

, who disagreed with his rather formalist view of the novel.

Wayne Booth Wayne Clayson Booth (February 22, 1921, in American Fork, Utah – October 10, 2005, in Chicago, Illinois) was an American literary critic. He was the George M. Pullman Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in English Language & Literature and ...

in ''

The Rhetoric of Fiction ''The'' () is a grammatical article in English, denoting persons or things already mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the definite article in English. ''The'' is the m ...

'' considers that Lubbock's take on the craft of Henry James was in fact schematizing and formal, if systematic, with a flattening effect. Nevertheless, Lubbock's ''The Craft of Fiction'' had a profound influence on novelists in the 1920s and after. As Michaela Bronstein has noted, "Lubbock's book didn't just influence critics; it was also a spur to contemporary novelists. Virginia Woolf vacillated between echoing and condemning his ideas. Woolf's lengthiest engagement with Lubbock was her 1922 essay "On Re-reading Novels", which primarily praises and extends Lubbock's argument. However, in her diary on 15 October 1923, she found herself disagreeing with him from an artistic perspective: "His ideal aesthetic form", she says, "cannot be accomplished consciously."

Marriage

Lubbock was homosexual, but seeking a financially secure life, he made a marriage of convenience in 1926 to Sybil Scott, née Lady Sybil Marjorie Cuffe. This made him a stepfather to the writer

Iris Origo Dame Iris Margaret Origo, Marchesa Origo, DBE (née Cutting; 15 August 1902 – 28 June 1988) was an English-born biographer and writer. She lived in Italy and devoted much of her life to improving the Tuscan estate at La Foce, near Montepulc ...

. Sybil was a daughter of the

Irish peer The Peerage of Ireland consists of those titles of nobility created by the English monarchs in their capacity as Lord or King of Ireland, or later by monarchs of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. It is one of the five divisi ...

Hamilton John Agmondesham Cuffe, 5th Earl of Desart. She had been widowed in 1910 by the premature death of her first husband, William Bayard Cutting Jr., from

tuberculosis Tuberculosis (TB) is an infectious disease usually caused by '' Mycobacterium tuberculosis'' (MTB) bacteria. Tuberculosis generally affects the lungs, but it can also affect other parts of the body. Most infections show no symptoms, ...

. She then remarried – her second husband was Geoffrey Scott, another of the Berenson circle, but the couple divorced in 1926 and in the same year she took Lubbock as her third husband. The marriage caused a division between Lubbock and Edith Wharton, who disapproved of Sybil.

Henry James

Lubbock was a good friend of

Henry James Henry James ( – ) was an American-British author. He is regarded as a key transitional figure between literary realism and literary modernism, and is considered by many to be among the greatest novelists in the English language. He was the ...

in James's later life, and became a follower in literary terms, and his editor after his death. Later scholars have questioned editorial decisions he made in publishing the James letters in 1920, at a time when many of those concerned were still alive.

Mark Schorer Mark Schorer (May 17, 1908 – August 11, 1977) was an American writer, critic, and scholar born in Sauk City, Wisconsin. Biography Schorer earned an MA at Harvard and his Ph.D. in English at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1936. Durin ...

, in his introduction to a reprint of Lubbock's ''The Craft of Fiction'', described him as "more Jamesian than James".

Works

*''

Elizabeth Barrett Browning Elizabeth Barrett Browning (née Moulton-Barrett; 6 March 1806 – 29 June 1861) was an English poet of the Victorian era, popular in Britain and the United States during her lifetime. Born in County Durham, the eldest of 12 children, Elizabet ...

in Her Letters'' (1906)
''Samuel Pepys''
(1909) *''A Book of English Prose, Part II'' (1913)
''The Letters of Henry James''
(1920) editor, two volumes *''George Calderon - a Sketch from Memory'' (1921)
''Earlham''
(1921) memoirs of

*''The Craft of Fiction'' (1921). The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Craft of Fiction, by Percy Lubbock
/ref> *''Roman Pictures'' (1923) *''The Region Cloud'' (1925) *''The Diary of

Arthur Christopher Benson Arthur Christopher Benson, (24 April 1862 – 17 June 1925) was an English essayist, poet and academic, and the 28th Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. He wrote the lyrics of Edward Elgar’s '' Coronation Ode'', including the words of the ...

'' (1927) *''

Mary Cholmondeley Mary Cholmondeley (usually pronounced /ˈtʃʌmli/, 8 June 1859 – 15 July 1925) was an English novelist. Her bestseller, '' Red Pottage'', satirised religious hypocrisy and the narrowness of country life. It was adapted as a silent film in 19 ...

: A Sketch from Memory'' (1928) *''Shades of Eton'' (1929) memoirs *''Portrait of

'' (1947) *''Percy Lubbock Reader'' (1957) editor Marjory Gane Harkness

Notes

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Lubbock, Percy English essayists English literary critics English biographers People educated at Eton College Alumni of King's College, Cambridge Fellows of Magdalene College, Cambridge Commanders of the Order of the British Empire 1879 births 1965 deaths James Tait Black Memorial Prize recipients Gurney family Blind people from England LGBT writers from England