Harold Acton
Sir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton , KBE (born July 5, 1904 in Florence , † February 27, 1994 there ) was a British author .
Life
Harold Acton's father was the art dealer Arthur Acton (1873–1953) and his mother was Hortense Mitchell (1871–1962), who came from a wealthy banking family in Chicago. After attending private schools in Florence, Reading in southern England and Geneva in Switzerland , Acton attended Eton College from May 1918 . His fellow students at the time included Eric Blair (the author George Orwell), Cyril Connolly , Robert Byron , Alec Douglas-Home , Ian Fleming , Brian Howard , Oliver Messel , Anthony Powell , Henry Yorke (the novelist Henry Green). In October 1923 Acton moved to Oxford University . There he co-founded The Oxford Broom magazine in 1923 and wrote his first poem Aquarium .
After completing his studies, Acton went to China, where he taught as a teacher. At the beginning of the Second World War, Acton returned to England and worked for the British Royal Air Force . After the Second World War he returned to Italy, where he spent many years in the family-owned Tuscan Villa La Pietra near Florence. As a writer, Acton wrote many works over the years, including The Last Medici , Memoirs of an Aesthete, and The Bourbons of Naples .
Acton's partner was the German photographer Alexander Zielcke , who is particularly known as a photographer for his photographs of Tuscan villas. When Acton died in 1994, he left the Tuscan villa La Pietra , where he spent many years of his life, to New York University . Acton was buried on the Cimitero Evangelico agli Allori in Florence.
It is disputed whether Harold Acton corresponds to the fictional character Anthony Blanche in the novel Reunion with Brideshead by Evelyn Waugh from 1945.
Honors
Works (selection)
- 1923: Aquarium , London, Duckworth
- 1925: To Indian Ass , London, Duckworth
- 1927: Five Saints and an Appendix , London, Holden
- 1928: Cornelian , London, The Westminster Press
- 1928: Humdrum , London, The Westminster Press
- 1930: The Last of the Medici , Florence, G. Orioli
- 1930: This Chaos , Paris, Hours Press
- 1932: The Last Medici , London, Faber & Faner
- 1936: Modern Chinese Poetry (together with Ch'en Shih-Hsiang), Duckworth
- 1937: Famous Chinese Plays (together with LC Arlington), Peiping, Henri Vetch
- 1941: Glue and Lacquer: Four Cautionary Tales (together with Lee Yi-Hsieh), London, The Golden Cockerel Press
- 1941: Peonies and Ponies , London, Chatto & Windus
- 1948: Memoirs of an Aesthete , London, Methuen
- 1950: Prince Isidore , London, Methuen
- 1956: The Bourbons of Naples (1734-1825) , London, Methuen
- 1960: Ferdinando Galiani, Rome , Edizioni di Storia e di Letteratura
- 1960: Florence (together with Martin Huerlimann), London, Thames & Hudson
- 1965: The Last Bourbons of Naples (1825-1861) , London, Methuen
- 1965: Old Lamps for New , London, Methuen
- 1970: More Memoirs of an Aesthete , London, Methuen
- 1972: Tit for Tat , London, Hamish Hamilton
- 1973: Tuscan Villas , London, Thames & Hudson
- 1975: Nancy Mitford: a Memoir , London, Hamish Hamilton
- 1976: The Peach Blossom Fan (with Ch'en Shih-Hsiang), Berkeley, University of California Press
- 1979: The Pazzi Conspiracy , London, Thames & Hudson
- 1982: The Soul's High School , London, Hamish Hamilton
- 1984: Three Extraordinary Ambassadors , London, Thames & Hudson
- 1986: Florence: a Travelers' Companion (introduction; texts by Edward Chaney), London, Constable
Web links
- Literature by and about Harold Acton in the catalog of the German National Library
- GLBTQ: Harold Acton
- Independent: Shadow of the last esthete
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Acton, Harold |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Acton, Harold Mario Mitchell (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British author |
| DATE OF BIRTH | July 5, 1904 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Florence , Italy |
| DATE OF DEATH | February 27, 1994 |
| Place of death | Florence , Italy |