Word: osbert
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Coates is one of the gems in this glittering, endearing ensemble of eccentric Englishmen. Dame Edith Sitwell collected her eccentrics nearly 30 years ago, when she and her brothers Osbert and Sacheverell were daring moderns, and their father, Sir George Sitwell-not included in this book -was setting one of the most glorious examples of eccentricity in English history (he was an aristocrat with an almost Renaissance-like variety of interests, including the invention of a musical tooth-brush). English Eccentrics, now revised and expanded, is still as fresh, invigorating and delightful as on the day it was written...
...impressive past, in which the mystical names of James Russell Lowell, Bliss Perry, Ellery Sedgwick, Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and William Dean Howells figure as editors, the issue goes on to new material by past contributors. Frost, Marquand, Hemingway, Thurber, Berenson, Morison, Isak Dinesen, President Conant, Jung, Slichter, Niebuhr, Osbert and Edith Sitwell, Auden, Wilder, McGinley, R. P. Lister, and the late Max Beerbohm march with deserved pomp and circumstance through the table of contents...
...authors, however, are so novel, and in reality Slichter and Frost are reworking old themes, and doing their jobs well. Osbert Sitwell keeps up his barrage of family anecdotes; Bernard Berenson analyzes another family topic--Bernard Berenson; Beerbohm revives the Victorians; and Marquand traces his genealogy and that of New England. All is as it was--fluent, powerful in spots, and not disturbing...
...entertainment, Hotel Paradiso is a bit in-and-out itself. The show has lively spurts and is attractively dotted with mad scenes. Osbert Lancaster's expertly ghastly sets are part of the fun, and the play's various set-tos are here and there funny. The whole evening is a brightly instructive exhibit of the mechanics of French farce; it is never quite an occasion of full-bodied merriment...
...everyone from Osbert Sitwell to Lady Astor, and of course Wells met Wells. The British were eager to see in Main Street support for the comforting conviction that Americans, though rich, were a pretty uncouth lot. So Lewis was warmly received, but not all appreciated his japeries. When he met some prominent Irishmen, his notion of humor was to sing a funny song about Christ walking on the water. Lewis insisted on doing imitations at dinner, and they went on too long. He even fancied he resembled Bernard Shaw and bought a wig at Clarkson's", the theatrical wigmaker...