Sybille Bedford | |
|---|---|
 Bedford in 1989 | |
| Born | Sybille Aleid Elsa von Schoenebeck (1911-03-16)16 March 1911 |
| Died | 17 February 2006(2006-02-17) (aged 94) London, England, United Kingdom |
| Occupation | Novelist, journalist |
| Period | 1953–2005 |
Sybille Bedford,OBE (16 March 1911 – 17 February 2006) was a German-born English writer of non-fiction and semi-autobiographical fiction books. She was a recipient of theGolden PEN Award.
She was born asSybille Aleid Elsa von Schoenebeck inCharlottenburg, west ofBerlin in theKingdom of Prussia, to Maximilian Josef vonSchoenebeck (1853–1925), a German aristocrat, retiredlieutenant colonel andart collector, and his GermanJewish wife, Elisabeth Bernhardt (1888–1937).[1] Sybille was raised in theRoman Catholic faith of her father atCastleFeldkirch inBaden. By her father's first marriage to Melanie Herz, Bedford had a half-sisterMaximiliane Henriette von Schoenebeck (referred to as 'Jacko' inQuicksands but in real life known as 'Catsy') who became Baroness von Dincklage on her marriage toHans Günther von Dincklage, apress attaché at theGerman Embassy in Paris. Bedford's parents divorced in 1918, and she remained with her father, under somewhat impoverished circumstances in the midst of his art and wine collection. He died in 1925, when she was 14 years old, and Sybille went to live in Italy with her mother and stepfather, Norberto Marchesani, an Italian architectural student.[2] During those years she studied in England, lodging inHampstead.[3]
In the early 1920s, Sybille often travelled between England and Italy. Following the rise of fascism in Italy, her mother and stepfather settled inSanary-sur-Mer, a small coastal fishing village inProvence in the south of France, nearToulon andMarseille. Sybille herself settled there as a teenager, living nearAldous Huxley, with whom she became friends. Bedford interacted with and was influenced by many of the German writers who settled in the area during that time, includingThomas Mann andBertolt Brecht. Meanwhile, her mother became addicted to morphine, which had been prescribed by a local physician, and became increasingly dysfunctional.[3]
In 1933, Sybille published an article critical of the Nazi regime inDie Sammlung, the literary magazine ofKlaus Mann, the son ofThomas Mann. When her Jewish ancestry was subsequently discovered by the Nazis, her German bank accounts were frozen.[4] At this time it was difficult for her to renew herGerman passport, and staying in Italy without a valid passport or a source of income carried the risk of being deported to Germany. Aldous Huxley's wife Maria came up with a solution in 1935. Maria is known to have said, on the question of who should marry Sybille, "We need to get one of our bugger friends." Sybille entered a marriage of convenience with an English Army officer, Walter "Terry" Bedford (an ex-boyfriend of a former manservant ofW. H. Auden's), whom she described as a friend's "bugger butler",[5] and obtained a British passport.[6] The marriage ended shortly thereafter, but Sybille took her husband's surname, publishing all of her later work as Sybille Bedford.
With assistance from Aldous and Maria Huxley, Bedford left France for America in advance of theGerman invasion of 1940. She followed the Huxleys toCalifornia and spent the rest ofWorld War II in the United States.
After the war, Bedford spent a year travelling inMexico. Her experiences on that trip would form the basis of her first published book, atravelogue entitledThe Sudden View: a Mexican Journey, which was published in 1953. Bedford spent the remainder of the 1940s living in France and Italy. During this time she had a love affair with an American woman, Evelyn W. Gendel,[7] who left her husband for Bedford and became a writer and editor herself.[8] In the 1950s Bedford becameMartha Gellhorn's confidante.[citation needed]
A Legacy, Bedford's second book and first novel, was published in 1956 and successfully televised by the BBC in 1975. It was described byFrancis King as "one of the great books of the 20th century".Evelyn Waugh wrote in a letter toNancy Mitford, "I wondered who this brilliant 'Mrs Bedford' could be. A cosmopolitan military man, plainly, with a knowledge of parliamentary government and popular journalism, a dislike ofPrussians, a liking for Jews, a belief that everyone speaks French in the home..."[9] Though outwardly a work of fiction, it was somewhat autobiographical – it presents a stylised version of her father's life in Germany, as well as some of the author's early childhood there. It was a success and enabled Bedford to continue writing.[10] In her lifetime, three more novels were published, as well as numerous works of non-fiction. In non-fiction she was best known as a travel writer and a legal reporter.[citation needed]
In 1945 she metEsther Murphy, who would become her lover. The relationship lasted only a few years, but they remained lifelong friends.[11]
Bedford spent the 1950s, the 1960s and the 1970s living in France, Italy, Britain and Portugal, and during that period had a twenty-year relationship with the American female novelistEda Lord.[6][2] In 1979 she settled inChelsea, London. In 1981 she was appointed an Officer of theOrder of the British Empire. She worked forPEN, was a fellow of theRoyal Society of Literature, and in 1994 became a Companion of Literature. Bedford's final work wasQuicksands, a memoir published in 2005. A biography bySelina HastingsSybille Bedford: An Appetite for Life was published in 2020.[12]
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