34-516: Fairy Gold is a 1926 novel by the British writer Compton Mackenzie . A Cornish knight living on an island, who has lost his son during the First World War , resents a young English soldier stationed nearby. Compton Mackenzie Sir Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie , OBE (17 January 1883 – 30 November 1972) was a Scottish writer of fiction, biography, histories and a memoir, as well as
68-639: A cultural commentator, raconteur and lifelong Scottish nationalist . He was one of the co-founders in 1928 of the National Party of Scotland along with Hugh MacDiarmid , R. B. Cunninghame Graham and John MacCormick . He was knighted in the 1952 Birthday Honours List . Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie was born in West Hartlepool , County Durham , England, into a theatrical family of Mackenzies, many of whose members used Compton as their stage surname, starting with his English grandfather Henry Compton ,
102-650: A degree in Modern History. In 1910, he began a brief career as an actor at the Garrick theatre in The Bishop's Son by Hall Caine . From there he joined the satirical theatrical troupe The Follies under the management of the comedian and impresario H.G. Pélissier at the Apollo, Shaftesbury Avenue as a song lyricist and sketch writer. Within a year their relationship became estranged over the marriage of his sister Fay, aged 17, to
136-581: A fan of snooker , and gave an account of the origin of the game's name in The Billiard Player magazine of 1939, describing how young lieutenant Neville Chamberlain (not the former British Prime Minister) was experimenting on the officers' mess table with the existing game of "Black Pool" featuring 15 red balls and a black. He presented the World Championship trophy to Joe Davis at the 1939 Championships . After his retirement, Mackenzie sold
170-718: A literary critic, comments on Mackenzie's "detail and wealth of reference". Sir John Betjeman said of it, "This has always seemed to me one of the best novels of the best period in English novel writing." Henry James thought it to be the most remarkable book written by a young author in his lifetime. After his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1914, Mackenzie explored religious themes in a trilogy of novels, The Altar Steps (1922), The Parson's Progress (1923) and The Heavenly Ladder (1924). In 1922, Robin Legge , chief music critic of The Daily Telegraph , encouraged Mackenzie to write some of
204-641: A politician sensitively in Thin Ice (1956). The Lunatic Republic (1959) is a political satire. For the version of English spoken by the inhabitants of Lunamania on the far side of the Moon, Mackenzie invented over 150 new words. Mackenzie worked as an actor, political activist and broadcaster. He served with British Intelligence in the Eastern Mediterranean during the First World War , later publishing four books on his experiences. According to these books, he
238-559: A successful writer for the rest of his life. His last novel, Some Achieve Greatness (1976), was published when he was in his early nineties. Some critics detected echoes of George Gissing and Arnold Bennett in Swinnerton's work, but he himself thought his chief influences were Henry James , Henrik Ibsen and Louisa May Alcott . His prose style was "natural and lucid", and he was disapproving of over-intellectual or pretentious writing. In The Georgian Literary Scene , an evocation of
272-488: A well-known Shakespearean actor of the Victorian era . His father, Edward Compton Mackenzie, and mother, Virginia Frances Bateman , were actors and theatre company managers; his sister, Fay Compton (whose son was Anthony Pelissier , Compton's nephew), starred in many of J. M. Barrie 's plays, including Peter Pan . He was educated at St Paul's School , London, and Magdalen College, Oxford , from where he graduated with
306-431: Is sometimes considered his magnum opus . He was admired by F. Scott Fitzgerald , whose first book, This Side of Paradise , was written under the literary influence of Compton. Sinister Street , his lengthy 1913–14 Bildungsroman , influenced George Orwell and Cyril Connolly , who both read it as schoolboys. Max Beerbohm praised Mackenzie's writing for vividness and emotional reality. Frank Swinnerton ,
340-729: The Royal Stuart Society , and a co-founder of the National Party of Scotland . He became a member of the Scottish Arts Club in 1929. He was rector of University of Glasgow from 1931 to 1934, defeating Oswald Mosley , who later led the British Union of Fascists , in his bid for the job. From 1920 to 1923 Mackenzie was the Tenant of Herm and Jethou . He built a house on Barra , in the Western Isles (Outer Hebrides) of Scotland, in
374-545: The 1930s. On Barra, he gained inspiration and found creative solitude, and befriended a great number of people that he described as "the aristocrats of democracy". He was a founding member of the short-lived secret organisation Clann Albain . Mackenzie was married three times. On 30 November 1905 (aged 22), he married Faith Stone in St Saviour's, Pimlico : they remained married for more than 50 years, until her death. In 1962 (aged 79), he married Christina MacSween, who died
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#1732872878206408-660: The 1932 edition was entered in the British Library's public catalogue. In 2011 Biteback published the original 1932 edition of Greek Memories , including the Secret Intelligence Service memo detailing the offending passages of the book. He was president of the Croquet Association from 1953 to 1966. He was president of the Siamese Cat Club. He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1956 when he
442-636: The 37 year-old Pélissier. It was then that he took up novel writing as a full-time career bolstered by the success of his early best-seller Carnival (1912), partly based on his experience with The Follies. Mackenzie is perhaps best known for two comic novels set in Scotland: Whisky Galore (1947) set in the Hebrides , and The Monarch of the Glen (1941) set in the Scottish Highlands . They were
476-472: The Isle of Barra. A list based on Kenneth Young's Compton Mackenzie , 1968: Frank Swinnerton Frank Arthur Swinnerton (12 August 1884 – 6 November 1982) was an English novelist, critic, biographer and essayist. He was the author of more than 50 books, and as a publisher's editor helped other writers including Aldous Huxley and Lytton Strachey . His long life and career in publishing made him one of
510-514: The Italian pianist Renata Borgatti , who was connected to Romaine Brooks . Compton Mackenzie's observations on the local life of the Italian islanders and foreign residents led to at least two novels, Vestal Fire (1927) and Extraordinary Women (1928). The latter, a roman à clef about a group of lesbians arriving on the island of Sirene, a fictional version of Capri, was published in Britain in
544-406: The case, succeeded in annoying the trial judge to such an extent that he then reduced the penalties to a token amount. Even so, the costs of his defence and the withdrawal from sale of Greek Memories left Mackenzie out of pocket and an attempt was made to ask the authorities exactly which passages in the book they objected to so it could be re-issued with the offending material removed. This approach
578-470: The earliest gramophone record reviews. In 1923 he and his brother-in-law Christopher Stone founded Gramophone , the still-influential classical music magazine. Mackenzie continued to edit the magazine until 1961. He was also the literary critic for the London-based national newspaper Daily Mail . Following his time on Capri , socialising with the gay exiles there, he treated the homosexuality of
612-507: The entire copyright in 20 of his books for a lump sum of £10,000 arguing that this was a capital receipt and not the proceeds of the business. The Court of Appeal held that this was assessable income as part of the proceeds of his business: Mackenzie v Arnold (1952) 33 TC 363. Mackenzie died on 30 November 1972, aged 89, in Edinburgh and was interred in St Barr's churchyard cemetery at Eoligarry on
646-415: The era of the gentlemanly man of letters in its final years, he wrote, "If I dwell for a moment longer, as I fear I must, upon the weakness of too much scholarship in the arts, it is because I think scholarship is nowadays excessively valued as a necessary preliminary to creative writing." Of all of his critical contributions, The Georgian Literary Scene stands out, and it is still used by those who study
680-452: The following year. Lastly, he married his deceased wife's sister , Lilian MacSween in 1965 (aged 82). (died 2009) Mackenzie was a supporter of West Bromwich Albion F.C. Although from the north east of England, he "was influenced in the choice of Albion as 'my' team by the fact that their ground was romantically called The Hawthorns and that they were nicknamed the Throstles". He was also
714-530: The last links with the generation of writers that included H. G. Wells , John Galsworthy and Arnold Bennett . Swinnerton was born in Wood Green , a suburb of London, the son of Charles Swinnerton, a copperplate engraver, and Rose, née Cottam. Swinnerton left school at the age of 14 and was employed as an office boy for a newspaper publisher, Hay, Nisbet & Co and then as a clerk-receptionist by J. M. Dent , publishers of Everyman's Library . He moved on to
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#1732872878206748-541: The period. The New York Times declared it "wholly – and most refreshingly – unlike other literary histories." Swinnerton himself said of his work: "My best books, in my own opinion, are Harvest Comedy and The Georgian Literary Scene , but I do not regard either one as of lasting importance.... I live in the country, am very lazy, work unwillingly very hard, and have few intolerances." Swinnerton lived for more than fifty years in Old Tokefield, Cranleigh , Surrey ,
782-479: The plan when the Duke asked him not to publish. Between 1913 and 1920 he lived with his wife, Faith , on Capri at Villa Solitaria , and returned to visit in later years. This Italian island near Sorrento was known to be tolerant not just of foreigners in general, but of artists and homosexuals in particular. He became friends with the writer Somerset Maugham , a frequent visitor to the island. Faith had an affair with
816-511: The publishing house of Chatto & Windus , first as a proof-reader and then as an editor. Although he began writing novels in 1909, he continued editing until he became a full-time author in 1926. Even then, he also worked as literary critic for the magazine Truth , the London Evening News (1929–32) and The Observer (1937–43). As a novelist, Swinnerton achieved critical and commercial success with Nocturne in 1917, and remained
850-666: The royal palace was to be surrounded by fire to prevent him escaping. While his secret service work seems to have been valued highly by his superiors, including Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming , his passionate political views, especially his support for the Venizelists , made him a controversial figure and he was expelled from Athens following the Noemvriana . In 1917, he founded the Aegean Intelligence Service, and enjoyed considerable autonomy for some months as its director. He
884-480: The same year as two other ground-breaking novels with lesbian themes, Virginia Woolf 's love letter to Vita Sackville-West , Orlando , and Radclyffe Hall 's controversial polemic, The Well of Loneliness , but Mackenzie's satire did not attract legal attention. He was a friend of Axel Munthe , who built Villa San Michele , and Edwin Cerio , who later became mayor of Capri. Mackenzie went to great lengths to trace
918-526: The sources of a successful film and a television series respectively. He published almost a hundred books on different subjects, including ten volumes of autobiography: My Life and Times (1883–71). He wrote history (on the Battle of Marathon and the Battle of Salamis ), biography ( Mr Roosevelt , a 1943 biography of FDR), literary criticism, satires, apologia ( Sublime Tobacco 1957), children's stories, poetry and so on. Of his fiction, The Four Winds of Love
952-460: The steps of his ancestors back to his spiritual home in the Highlands, and displayed a deep and tenacious attachment to Gaelic culture throughout his long and very colourful life. As his biographer, Andro Linklater , commented, "Mackenzie wasn't born a Scot, and he didn't sound like a Scot. But nevertheless his imagination was truly Scottish." He was an ardent Jacobite , the third Governor-General of
986-506: The trial, vividly described, is in Octave Seven (1931–38) of his autobiography: the result was a fine of £100 and (prosecution) costs of £100. His own costs were over £1,000. Mackenzie states that a plea-bargain (described in the text as "an arrangement") had been reached with the judge prior to the trial: in exchange for his pleading guilty, he would be fined £500 with £500 costs. However Sir Thomas Inskip , then attorney general who prosecuted
1020-903: Was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), and was also honoured with the French Legion of Honour , the Serbian Order of the White Eagle , and the Greek Order of the Redeemer . After the publication of his Greek Memories in 1932, he was prosecuted the following year at the Old Bailey under the Official Secrets Act for quoting from supposedly secret documents. His account of
1054-663: Was commissioned in the Royal Marines , rising to the rank of captain. His ill-health making front-line service impractical, he was assigned counter-espionage work during the Gallipoli campaign , and in 1916 built up a considerable counter-intelligence network in Athens, Greece then being neutral. He is alleged to have taken part in an attempt to assassinate the King by poison in August 1916, during which
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1088-558: Was offered the Presidency of the Republic of Cerigo , which was briefly independent while Greece was split between Royalists and Venizelists , but declined the office. He was recalled in September 1917. Smith-Cumming considered appointing him as his deputy, but withdrew the suggestion after opposition from within his own service, and Mackenzie played no further active role in the war. In 1919, he
1122-713: Was rebuffed. In Octave Eight, covering the years 1939–45, Mackenzie recounts that the matter was raised in Parliament and a new version of Greek Memories was eventually published in 1939. However, in spite of the withdrawal of the 1st edition a copy had already been deposited at the British Museum (which then contained what is now the independent British Library) but was not given a general catalogue reference making it effectively impossible to access. In 1994 The Guardian newspaper published an article about this anomaly The muzzling of Compton Mackenzie – 62 years on . Following this
1156-549: Was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the King's Theatre , Hammersmith , London. A strong supporter of Edward VIII , Mackenzie was a leading member of the Octavians, a minor society that campaigned in support of Edward VIII and for his return to the UK after he became the Duke of Windsor. According to a 1938 Time article Mackenzie had intended to write a book in support of Edward but abandoned
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