Nigel Nicolson

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Nigel Nicolson OBE (born January 19, 1917 in London , † September 23, 2004 at Sissinghurst Castle , Kent , England ) was a British author, publisher and politician.

life and work

Nicolson was the son of the writer couple Sir Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West . He had a brother, the art historian Benedict Nicolson . The children grew up in Kent , near Knole House , where their mother was born, and then lived at Sissinghurst Castle , where their parents created famous gardens. Nicolson was sent away from home early and taught at Summer Fields private school in Summertown , Oxford , followed by Eton and Balliol College , Oxford. During the Second World War he served in the Grenadier Guards , about which he later wrote a historical account.

In 1945 he founded the publishing house Weidenfeld and Nicolson together with the journalist George Weidenfeld , of which he was managing director from 1948 to 1992. Although his father was a Labor Party politician , Nicolson was actively involved in the Conservative Party . In 1952 he became a Member of the British Parliament . However, he was uncomfortable for the Tories and voted with the Labor Party for the abolition of the death penalty and abstained in a vote of confidence placed by the government in 1956 regarding the Suez Crisis , which resulted in a dispute between Nicolson and his constituents Seaside resort of Bournemouth , referred to as the Bournemouth Affair : Nicolson's constituency called for his resignation and wrote a petition to the Prime Minister , which was followed by a vote. To Nicolson's disadvantage, his political ambitions crossed with his interests as a publisher: The simultaneous publication of Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita in his publishing house caused a scandal; he lost the vote and was asked to step down from his political office in the 1959 elections. With the end of his political career, Nicolson devoted himself primarily to the writing, wrote biographies and wrote columns for the Sunday Telegraph .

His 1973 book Portrait of a Marriage ( Portrait of a Marriage: Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West ; German translation 1974) in which he revealed the open marriage and the promiscuous love life of his eccentric parents using diaries and letters, caused a social uproar and in no time became a bestseller on UK and US sales lists. The delicate work above all uncovered the bisexual tendencies of the mother Vita Sackville-West, who maintained amorous friendships with the writers Violet Trefusis and Virginia Woolf . He also published his father's diaries and wrote biographies and reflections on Jane Austen , Mary Curzon and Virginia Woolf , among other things . Nicolson published his autobiography in 1997 under the title Long Life . In 2000 he was honored with the Order of the British Empire for his services to the Kingdom .

From 1953 to 1970 Nicolson was married to Philippa Janet Tennyson d'Eyncourt. The marriage had three children: Rebecca, a publisher, Juliet Nicolson , a historian, and son Adam, a writer.

Publications (selection)

  • The Harold Nicolson Diaries and Letters 1907-1964 (1966). Phoenix, Reprint 2005, ISBN 0-7538-1997-X
  • Portrait of a Marriage: Vita Sackville-West and Harold Nicolson (1973). University of Chicago Press, Reprint 1998, ISBN 0-226-58357-0
  • The National Trust Book of Great Houses of Britain . Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1978, ISBN 0-297-77411-5
  • Kent ; with photographs by Patrick Sutherland, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, Reprint 1990, ISBN 0-297-79602-X
  • A Long Life: Memoirs . Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London 1997, ISBN 0-297-81322-6
  • Mary Curzon . Weidenfeld & Nicolson, London, new edition 1998, ISBN 0-7538-0201-5

German translations

  • Harold Nicolson: Diaries and Letters . Foreword and translation by Helmut Lindemann, Deutscher Bücherbund, Stuttgart 1970
  • Portrait of a marriage: Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West . Unabridged edition in German translation, Ullstein 1996, ISBN 3-548-30387-0
  • Virginia Woolf (Biographical Passions) . German translation by Monika Noll, Claassen 2002, ISBN 3-546-00293-8

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Nicolson, Nigel
BRIEF DESCRIPTION British author, publisher and politician, Member of the House of Commons
DATE OF BIRTH January 19, 1917
PLACE OF BIRTH London
DATE OF DEATH September 23, 2004
Place of death Sissinghurst Castle , Kent