Orange cloth binding with black title plate and gilt title on the spine.

F.B.A. provides an in-depth photographic presentation of this item to stimulate your feeling and touch. More traditional book descriptions are immediately available

Complete in itself but part of a five-volume autobiography.

Sir Francis Osbert Sacheverell Sitwell, 5th Baronet CH (6 December 1892 – 4 May 1969) was an English writer. His elder sister was Edith Sitwell, and his younger brother was Sacheverell Sitwell. Like them, he devoted his life to art and literature.

Sitwell was born on 6 December 1892 at 3 Arlington Street, St James’s, London. His parents were Sir George Reresby Sitwell, fourth baronet, genealogist and antiquarian, and Lady Ida Emily Augusta (née Denison). He grew up in the family seat at Renishaw Hall, Derbyshire, and at family mansions in the region of Scarborough, and went to Ludgrove School, then Eton College from 1906 to 1909. For many years his entry in Who’s Who contained the phrase “Educated]: during the holidays from Eton.”

In 1911 he joined the Sherwood Rangers Yeomanry but, not cut out to be a cavalry officer, transferred to the Grenadier Guards at the Tower of London from where, in his off-duty time, he could frequent theatres and art galleries.

Late in 1914 Sitwell’s civilised life was exchanged for the trenches of France near Ypres in Belgium. It was here that he wrote his first poetry, describing it as “Some instinct, and a combination of feelings not hitherto experienced united to drive me to paper”. “Babel” was published in The Times on 11 May 1916. In the same year, he began literary collaborations and anthologies with his brother and sister, the trio being usually referred to simply as the Sitwells.

He acted as best man at the wedding of Alexander, 1st Marquess of Carisbrooke, son of Prince Henry of Battenberg and Princess Beatrice of the United Kingdom, on 19 July 1917 at the Chapel Royal, St. James’s Palace, London.

In 1918 Sitwell left the Army with the rank of Captain and contested the 1918 general election as the Liberal Party candidate for Scarborough and Whitby, finishing second.