The Famous Literary Trio

Edith, Osbert and Sacheverell
Cecil Beaton was one of the proteges of the young Sitwells, who discovered and supported artists, writers, musicians and photographers, many of whom became extremely well known. They included William Walton, Cecil Beaton, John Piper and Rex Whistler. This is a Beaton photograph of the three, capturing their eccentricity and originality.
Dame Edith Sitwell (1887 - 1964)
Edith Sitwell was a grandly eccentric woman, described by one observer as "an altar on the move." She set her aquiline nose and long fingers off with sweeping fabrics and many large rings, and she involved herself in the world of literature and the arts with gusto.
From 1916 to 1921 she edited Wheels, an annual anthology of modern verse. Her own poems explored the musical qualities of language and some were set to the music of William Walton, which matched their moods and rhythms.
They produced a challengingly modern piece of work, Façade, which was first performed at the Aeolian Hall in London in 1923, and produced one newspaper headline which enraged her brother Osbert - "Drivel They Paid to Hear".
Another writer called it "the jolliest entertainment of the season" and commented "it is all very well for old-fashioned purists to say that poetry should not be read through a megaphone. The answer is that the Sitwells know what they are driving at better than we do".
Edith had a perceptive and mocking wit, and her letters to her literary friends and to her family are a delight.
Here she writes to her sister-in-law Georgia from her London flat in the twenties:"I can't tell you what I am going through. 'They' are putting fresh tiles into the flat beneath, and doing it up. So they say. But I don't think it is that. I think they are doing a sound-film of the Battle of Verdun, accompanied by racing contests between traction engines and elephants. Massed choirs are singing the March of the Men of Harlech, and a whole nation of mice seems to be nibbling through the wood work. Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughtered saints. What a life! What a Life!"
Whatever anyone thought of her, they could not ignore her. She and her brothers sponsored William Walton, T S Eliot, John Piper and Rex Whistler among others, and between them they contributed significantly to English letters of the 20th century.
Edith was made a Dame of the Order of the British Empire in 1954. She was also made an Honorary Doctory of Literature in 1948 of Leeds and Durham, of Oxford 1951 (the first woman to become so) and Sheffield 1954.
She died, unmarried, in 1964, and her autobiography, Taken Care Of was published posthumously.