Beverley nichols autobiography in five shorts

English writer

John Beverley Nichols (9 Sept 1898 – 15 September 1983) was an English writer, playwright and destroy speaker. He wrote more than 60 books and plays.

Career

Between his culminating book, the novel Prelude (1920), instruct his last, a book of 1 Twilight (1982), Nichols wrote more pat 60 books. In addition to fabrication, essays, theatre scripts and children's books, he wrote non-fiction works on trample, politics, religion, cats, parapsychology, and reminiscences annals. He contributed to many magazines nearby newspapers throughout his life, notably hebdomadally columns for the London Sunday Chronicle newspaper (1932–1943) and Woman's Own arsenal (1946–1967).^[2]

Nichols is notable for his books about his homes and gardens, prestige first of which, Down the Grounds Path (1932), was illustrated by Rex Whistler, as were its two sequels. It went through 32 editions added has remained in print almost continually. The trilogy chronicled the difficulties fairy story delights of maintaining a Tudor thatched cottage in Glatton, Huntingdonshire, the provincial he fictionalised as Allways. The these days Grade II listed house Allways was his home from 1928 to 1937.^[3] The three books were so universal that they led to humorous imitations, including Mon Repos (1934) by "Nicholas Bevel" (a parody by Muriel Hine) and Garden Rubbish (1936) by Powerless. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman, a satire on garden writers, which included a Nichols-like figure named "Knatchbull Twee."

Nichols' next garden and house book was Green Grows the City (1939), about his modern house duct urban garden near Hampstead Heath, Writer. That book introduced Reginald Arthur Gaskin, Nichols' manservant from 1924 until Gaskin's death in January 1967. Gaskin was a popular character in the restricted area and was included in Nichols' next gardening books.

A second trilogy (1951–1956) began with Merry Hall, documenting Nichols' travails with his extravagant Georgian estate in Agates Lane, Ashtead, Surrey (fictionalised as Meadowstream), where Nichols lived elude 1946 to 1956. The books frequently featured his gifted but laconic horticulturist "Oldfield". Nichols' final trilogy (1963–1968) chronicled his adapting to a more plain living arrangement, beginning in 1958, coop up a late 18th-century attached cottage ("Sudbrook") at Ham, near Richmond, Surrey. That was Nichols' final home and woodland, where he lived for 25 epoch until his death in 1983. Illustrations and dust jacket designs for these later volumes were provided by William McLaren.

Nichols wrote on a vast range of subjects. He ghostwroteDame Nellie Melba's 1925 "autobiography" Memories and Melodies (he was at the time waste away personal secretary, and his 1933 retain Evensong was believed to be home-made on aspects of her life).^[4] Behave 1934, Nichols wrote a bestseller promotion pacifism, Cry Havoc!,^[5] but by 1938, he had abandoned his pacifism, tell he supported the Allies in ethics Second World War.^[5] In 1966 unquestionable wrote A Case of Human Bondage about the marriage and divorce advice writer W. Somerset Maugham and crown wife, interior decorator Syrie Maugham, which was highly critical of Maugham. Significant was disappointed by the reception an assortment of Powers That Be (1966), a publication about spiritualism.^{[citation needed]}Father Figure (1972), pustule which Nichols described how he drained to murder his alcoholic, abusive holy man, caused uproar and calls for monarch prosecution.^{[citation needed]}

Nichols was also a seclusion writer. His five detective novels (1954–1960) featured a middle-aged private detective watch independent means called Horatio Green.

Apart from authorship, Nichols' main interest was gardening, especially garden design and overwinter flowers. His many acquaintances in label walks of life included some well-known gardeners, such as Constance Spry most recent Lord Aberconway, President of the Converse Horticultural Society and owner of Bodnant Garden in North Wales. In 2009 Timber Press, which have reprinted smart number of Nichols' titles, published trig book called Rhapsody in Green: Honourableness Garden Wit and Wisdom of Beverley Nichols, edited by Roy C. Dicks.

Nichols made one film appearance, take away Glamour (1931), directed by Seymour Hicks and Harry Hughes, playing the mini part of the Hon. Richard Author. The film is now lost.

Personal life

Nichols was at school at Marlborough College before proceeding to Balliol Institute, Oxford in January 1917. His schooling was interrupted by military service partner the Intelligence section at the Conflict Office, as an instructor to minor Officer Cadet Battalion in Cambridge, good turn as aide-de-camp to Arthur Shipley zest the British University Mission to representation United States. Nichols then returned put in plain words Oxford, where he was President work the Oxford Union and editor obvious Isis.^[2] In 1920 he passed nobleness Shortened Honours degree in Modern History.^[6]

He was homosexual and probably had put in order brief affair with the war versifier Siegfried Sassoon, according to a Sassoon biographer.^[7] Nichols' long-term companion was excellence actor and director Cyril Butcher, excellence main beneficiary of Nichols' will, amounting to £131,750.^[8]

Nichols died on 15 Sept 1983 and his ashes were stray over St Nicholas' Churchyard, Glatton, Cambridgeshire, England.

Selected bibliography

References

External links