Julian MacLaren-Ross

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Julian MacLaren-Ross , also James (born July 7, 1912 in London ; died November 3, 1964 there ), was a British writer.

Life

Julian MacLaren-Ross was born in South Norwood, London in 1912. He grew up in Bournemouth and the south of France. He lived as a bohemian , used up the family fortune and fell into poverty. During the Second World War he was drafted in 1940, but in 1943 he was dismissed from the troops for removal. The publisher Rupert Hart-Davis saved him from the military tribunal.

He became addicted to alcohol and drugs, lived in constant need of money in cheap accommodation in Soho wearing the mask of a dandy with a silver knob on a walking stick .

Maclaren-Ross wrote for various literary magazines such as London Magazine and in Cyril Connolly's Horizon . He wrote socially critical short stories, only one novel, and found his greatest recognition in the 1940s with the stories about life among soldiers: The Stuff to Give the Troops .

In Anthony Powell's twelve-volume novel A Dance to the Music of Time he was given the name X. Trapnel and was characterized in the tenth volume Books do furnish a room as follows:

Trapnel wanted, among other things, to be a writer, a dandy, a lover, a comrade, an eccentric, a sage, a virtuoso, a good chap, a man of honor, a hard case, a spendthrift, an opportunist, a raissoneur; to be very rich, to be very poor, to possess a thousand mistresses, to win the heart of one love to whom he was ever faithful ...

The 1977 Fontana paperback edition showed MacLaren-Ross as the cover picture in a caricature by Marc with the utensils dark glasses and walking stick. Maclaren-Ross, according to his biographer Paul Willetts, did not master his wishful thinking. When he died, the obituary in The Spectator on November 13, 1964, recalled that a great novel had been expected from him - in vain.

Works (selection)

  • The stuff to give the troops . London: Jonathan Cape, 1944
  • Better than a Kick in the Pants. London: Lawson & Dunn, 1945
  • Request by the tarantula . London: Allan Wingate, 1946
  • The Nine Men of Soho . London: Allan Wingate, 1946
  • Of love and hunger . London: Allan Wingate, 1947
    • About love and hunger: a novel . Translation by Joachim Kalka , afterword by Paul Willett. Wuppertal: Arco, 2016
  • The Weeping and the Laughter: a chapter of autobiography . London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1953
  • The Funny Bone . London: Elek Books, 1956
  • Until the Day She Dies: a tale of terror . Hamish Hamilton, 1960
    • Until the day of her death: detective novel . Translation Max Beutler. Munich: Desch, 1962
  • The Doomsday Book . Hamish Hamilton, 1961
  • Georges Simenon : Maigret and the burglar's wife . Translation by Julian MacLaren-Ross. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books, 1963
  • My name is love . London: Times Press, 1964
  • Memoirs of the Forties . London: Alan Ross, 1965 (posthumous)
  • Collected memoirs . Introduction by Paul Willetts. London: Black Spring Press, 2004
  • Selected letters . Ed. Paul Willetts. London: Black Spring, 2008

literature

  • Angela Schader: And they don't want vacuum cleaners either . Review, in: NZZ , August 6, 2016, p. 25
  • Paul Willetts : Fear and Loathing in Fitzrovia. The Bizarre Life of the Writer, Actor, and Soho Raconteur Julian Maclaren-Ross . Stockport: Dewi Lewis Publishing, 2003 ISBN 9781904587279 (not viewed)
  • Chris Petit : Newman Passage or J Maclaren-Ross and the Case of the Vanishing Writers , in: Maria Lexton (Ed.): The Time out book of London short stories . London: Penguin Books, 1993 ISBN 0-14-023085-8 (not viewed)

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ DJ Taylor: rereading Julian Maclaren-Ross , essay, in: The Guardian , December 7, 2012
  2. ↑ Nicholas Royle : The sage of Soho , Review, in: The Guardian , Nov. 27, 2004
  3. ↑ a b Obituary , in: The Spectator, November 13, 1964
  4. ^ Anthony Powell: Books do furnish a room . London: Fontana Books, 1978, pp. 154f.
  5. ↑ DJ Taylor: From hero to zero , Paul Willetts biography review, in: The Guardian , March 22, 2003
personal data
SURNAME MacLaren-Ross, Julian
ALTERNATIVE NAMES MacLaren-Ross, James
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British writer
DATE OF BIRTH July 7, 1912
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH 3rd November 1964
Place of death London