James Pope-Hennessy
Richard James Arthur Pope-Hennessy CVO (born November 20, 1916 in London , † January 25, 1974 ibid) was a British journalist and writer , who mainly through his travel reports West Indian Summer and The Baths of Absalom as well as playing in the West Indies his biographies became known and received, among other things, the Hawthornden Prize and the Whitbread Book Award for best biography.
Life
Pope-Hennessy, the younger brother of the art historian Sir John Pope-Hennessy , studied after school at Balliol College of Oxford University and in 1939 secretary of the governor of Trinidad and Tobago . For his book London Fabric , published in the same year , a representation of lesser-known historical buildings and places in London, he was honored in 1940 with the renowned Hawthornden Prize. In the mid-1930s he also came into contact with other young writers such as Raymond Mortimer and James Lees-Milne .
During the Second World War he was an employee of the Intelligence Corps of the British Army and processed his experiences in the West Indies in the book West Indian Summer in 1943 . After the war he became a journalist, most recently from 1947 to 1949 as literary editor of The Spectator magazine . Subsequently, he had been a full-time writer since 1949 and established his reputation as a biographer with the biography of the writer, patron, politician and collector ichard Monckton Milnes, which consists of the two volumes The Years of Promise (1949) and The Flight of Youth (1951) . In addition, he wrote the foreword for the photo book Beautiful London published in 1950 by photographer Helmut Gernsheim .
After Aspects of Provence (1952), The Baths of Absalom (1954) was a further processing of his experiences in the West Indies. With Lord Crewe, the Likeness of a Liberal (1955) he created another biography, which was followed by Verandah (1964), a study of British colonial history based on the career of his ancestor Sir John Pope-Hennessy . Along with the Sins of the Fathers published in 1967 , a harrowing account of the Atlantic slave trade between 1441 and 1807, this is one of his best books. After a historical-topographical treatise on Hong Kong with the title Half-Crown Colony (1969), he wrote biographies on the writers Anthony Trollope and Robert Louis Stevenson , receiving the Whitbread Book Award in 1972 for the biography Trollope .
After he was found murdered in his London apartment, speculation arose that his homosexuality was the cause of his murder. In 1981 Peter Quennell published A Lonely Business , a collection of autobiographical fragments.
more publishments
- America is an atmosphere , 1947
- Queen Mary, 1867-1953 , 1959
- The Houses of Parliament , posthumously , 1975
In German language
- Black Skin Business: The History of the Transatlantic Slave Trade , original title Sins of the Fathers , 1970
Web links
- Literature by and about James Pope-Hennessy in the catalog of the German National Library
- Biography (jrank.org)
- Bibliography (openlibrary.org)
Individual evidence
- ^ Official James Lees-Milne website
- ↑ Simon Hoggart: Memories of a strong Sherry The Guardian, February 24, 2007, accessed June 23, 2019
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pope-Hennessy, James |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Pope-Hennessy, Richard James Arthur (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | British journalist and writer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | November 20, 1916 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | London |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 25, 1974 |
| Place of death | London |