Sybille Bedford

November 15, 2020
A writer's long, passionate, peripatetic life. In 1935, German-born Sybille von Schoenebeck (1911-2006) was living in France, where, because of her German-Jewish ancestry, she felt increasingly vulnerable in a charged political atmosphere. Taking friends' advice that a British passport would ensure her safety, she married Walter Bedford, an attendant at a London gentlemen's club, who agreed to the marriage in exchange for a fee of 100 pounds. After dinner and an evening out, the couple never saw each other again. Drawing on archival material, correspondence, diaries, and Bedford's autobiographical novels and memoir, Hastings, biographer of Evelyn Waugh, Somerset Maugham, and other literary figures, offers a gossipy, well-informed chronicle of a woman noted for her intelligence, talent, and, not least, her circle of famous friends. These included Aldous and Maria Huxley, Thomas Mann and his children, various Bloomsbury denizens, Peggy Guggenheim, Martha Gellhorn (who offered her writing advice), Janet Flanner, and M.F.K. Fisher. Bedford's early life was difficult: Her parents' marriage was contentious; her father died when she was a young teenager; her mother was vain and self-absorbed. Sybille was sent to study in England, where she was taken in by a sympathetic couple, beginning a pattern that was to continue throughout her life: "friendships, attachments to a group, a couple, a family not my own" that made her "buoyantly happy." One woman who looked upon her with a "motherly eye" also initiated her into lesbian sex. After her mother remarried, Bedford lived with the couple in the south of France, where she met the Huxleys, neighbors who became her confidants and supporters. Maria also became her lover, one among many affairs. Hastings traces a "complex web of love and friendship--and occasional hostility" that spun around Bedford, who worked hard to succeed as a writer, producing a travel book based on a stay in Mexico, several novels, a reverent biography of Aldous Huxley, and a memoir. A sympathetic, engaging biography.

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January 1, 2021
As a writer, Sybille Bedford (1911-2006) was no overnight sensation. And she was far from prolific. She produced four novels (A Legacy is her best known), a two-volume biography of her friend and mentor Aldous Huxley, some sterling travel writing, and a surprising batch of highly regarded courtroom narratives. Although we are led here to believe that her literary reputation is on the rise, what veteran biographer Hastings dwells on most is the "moveable feast" that appeared to define Bedford's life. From complicated beginnings in Germany to a peripatetic existence in seaside France, Paris, London, Rome, and the U.S., Bedford (n�e Schoenebeck, she got her married name from a bridegroom, who quickly left the scene) proceeded through a dizzying and overlapping series of friendships, infatuations, and lesbian relationships burnished by sea breezes, fine food, literary chat, travel, creative anxieties, and emotional fragility. The supporting cast includes Martha Gellhorn, whose writing guidance proved important, and Richard Olney, the expatriate American who codified French cooking and wine. Drawing from previously untapped correspondence and journals, Hastings dutifully pieces it all together.

COPYRIGHT(2021) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

February 1, 2021

Biographer Hastings, who previously chronicled Evelyn Waugh and Nancy Mitford, now meticulously charts the unusual life of German-born English writer Sybille Bedford (1911-2006) in this volume, the most comprehensive biography of the author yet. Bedford made a career of dramatizing her own upbringing in 20th-century Europe, and readers who are familiar with her work will find the true version of her life illuminating. Hastings portrays her subject as having lived an active, privileged, and unconventional life; the book is full of details on her friendships and romantic relationships that sometimes reads like a "who's who" of mid-20th century Western literature. The chapter covering Bedford's years in the United States is particularly colorful, but it is the second half of the book, when Bedford's publishing career begins in earnest, that best brings Bedford to life and leaves readers with a better understanding of her impact and influence. VERDICT This comprehensive Bedford biography will most appeal to readers who are familiar with either her work or mid-century Western literature in general. More casual readers might find the cast of characters dizzying, but the book does a fine job of capturing the spirit and challenges of the time.--Sarah Schroeder, Univ. of Washington Bothell

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