Cyril Vernon Connolly (10 September 1903 - 26 November 1974) was an English intellectual. September 10 is the 253rd day of the year (254th in leap years). ... 1903 (MCMIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (see link for calendar) of the Gregorian calendar or a common year starting on Friday of the 13-day slower Julian calendar. ... November 26 is the 330th day (331st on leap years) of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 1974 (MCMLXXIV) was a common year starting on Tuesday. ... Motto: (French for God and my right) Anthem: Multiple unofficial anthems Capital London Largest city London Official language(s) English (de facto) Unification    - by Athelstan AD 927  Area    - Total 130,395 km² (1st in UK)   50,346 sq mi  Population    - 2005 est. ...

Life

He was born in Coventry in Warwickshire to a wealthy family of Anglo-Irish extraction. He was educated at St Cyprian's School and Eton College, at both of which he was an exact contemporary of George Orwell, who remained a life-long friend. Connolly later attended Balliol College, Oxford. The Precinct in Coventry city centre. ... A detailed map Stratford-upon-Avon Kenilworth Castle Warwickshire (pronounced /ˈwɒɹɪkˌʃə/, /ˈwɔːɹɪkˌʃə/, or /ˈwɔːɹɪkˌʃɪə/) is a landlocked non-metropolitan county in central England. ... Anglo-Irish was a term used historically to describe a ruling class inhabitants of Ireland between 1570 and 1829, who were the descendants and successors of the Protestant Ascendancy[1], mostly belonging to the Anglican Church of Ireland or to a lesser extent one of the English dissenting churches, such... St Cyprians was an expensive and exclusive preparatory school for boys, founded in 1899, which operated in the early twentieth century in Eastbourne, East Sussex, England. ... The Kings College of Our Lady of Eton, commonly known as Eton College or just Eton, is an internationally renowned Public School (privately-funded and independent) for male students, founded in 1440 by Henry VI. It is located in Eton, Berkshire (traditionally part of Buckinghamshire), near Windsor in England... Eric Arthur Blair (June 25, 1903[1][2] – January 21, 1950), better known by the pen name George Orwell, was an English author and journalist. ... College name Balliol College Named after John de Balliol Established 1263 Sister College St Johns Master Andrew Graham JCR President Jack Hawkins Undergraduates 403 MCR President Chelsea Payne Graduates 228 Homepage Boatclub Balliol College, founded in 1263, is one of the constituent colleges of the University of Oxford in...

A regular contributor to the leftist New Statesman in the 1930s, Connolly went on to co-edit, with Stephen Spender and Peter Watson, the influential literary magazine Horizon from 1939 to 1950. He was at one time the literary editor for The Observer, and, after 1950, the chief book reviewer for the London Sunday Times. Connolly wrote only one novel, The Rock Pool (1935) a satirical work which was generally well received. Perhaps his best known work is the autobiography Enemies of Promise (1938), in which he attempted to explain why he failed to produce the literary masterpiece which he and others believed he should have been capable of writing. However, the work he wrote afterwards ("The Unquiet Grave") (under the pseudonym 'Palinurus') is also noteworthy. He died in 1974. The New Statesman is a left-of-centre political weekly published in London. ... This article or section does not cite its references or sources. ... Sir Stephen Harold Spender CBE, (February 28, 1909 – July 16, 1995) was an English poet and essayist who concentrated on themes of social injustice and the class struggle in his work. ... Victor William (Peter) Watson (September 14, 1908 – May 3, 1956) was a wealthy art collector in England in the 20th century. ... 1939 (MCMXXXIX) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ... 1950 (MCML) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper distributed in the United Kingdom and Republic of Ireland, published by Times Newspapers Ltd, a subsidiary of News International which is in turn owned by News Corporation. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Enemies of Promise is a critical and autobiographical work written by Cyril Connolly and first published in 1938. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ...

Since 1976, Connolly's papers and personal library of over 8,000 books have been housed at the University of Tulsa. The University of Tulsa is a private, comprehensive university awarding bachelors, masters, and doctoral degrees located in Tulsa, Oklahoma. ...

Assessment

Cyril Connolly was a man of letters. He did his best work as a critic and, like Edmund Wilson in America, wielded enormous influence. Like Wilson, he also wrote fiction, but neither man was at his finest in the novel form, although both could analyse others' novels with insight. An intellectual is a person who uses his or her intellect to study, reflect, and speculate on a variety of different ideas. ... Edmund Wilson (May 8, 1895 – June 12, 1972) was an American writer, noted chiefly for his literary criticism. ...

An astute and often witty commentator, with great gifts for often cruel mimcry ('Told In Gath', his concise take-off of Aldous Huxley's Eyeless in Gaza, has been repeatedly anthologised in collections of parodies), Connolly informed the thinking and attitudes of a generation. He set exacting standards for himself, and his failure to flourish as a writer was something he both acknowledged and was able to explain. In The Unquiet Grave he writes: ‘Approaching forty, sense of total failure: ... Never will I make that extra effort to live according to reality which alone makes good writing possible: hence the manic-depressiveness of my style,—which is either bright, cruel and superficial; or pessimistic; moth-eaten with self-pity.’ Aldous Leonard Huxley (July 26, 1894 – November 22, 1963) was an English writer who emigrated to the United States, living in Los Angeles until his death in 1963. ... Eyeless in Gaza is a dense novel by Aldous Huxley, first published in 1936. ...

As editor of Horizon (1939 - 1950), Connolly gave a platform to a wide range of distinguished and emerging writers. The magazine was an integral component of intellectual and literary life in England and contributed to the maintenance of a vital literary culture. It contained a remarkable, always unpredictable, mixture of famous authors (such as Evelyn Waugh and Hermann Hesse) and unknowns. Evelyn Waugh, as photographed in 1940 by Carl Van Vechten Arthur Evelyn St. ... Hermann Hesse in 1927 Hermann Hesse (pronounced ) (2 July 1877 – 9 August 1962) was a German-born poet, novelist, and painter who became a Swiss citizen. ...

Connolly's definitions of the Mandarin and the New Vernacular styles began a debate that still continues. He was robust in his criticism of the decline of the Mandarin and perhaps too effusive in his welcome of the New Vernacular. As this style now seems to have won out it seems fair to speculate that Connolly might be less than enamoured of the flat, colourless prose that now infects most modern writing, especially given the frequent and inspired lushness of his own manner in practice. Kenneth Tynan, writing in the March 1954 Harper's Bazaar, praised Connolly's style as 'one of the most glittering of English literary possessions.' Kenneth Peacock Tynan (April 2, 1927 - July 26, 1980), was an influential (and occasionally controversial) British theatre critic and author. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged with Harpers & Queen. ...

Works

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to:

Cyril Connolly

• The Rock Pool, 1935
• The Enemies of Promise, 1938
• The Unquiet Grave, 1944
• The Condemned Playground, 1945
• The Missing Diplomats, 1952
• The Golden Horizon 1953
• Les Pavilions,1962 (with Jerome Zerbe)
• Previous Convictions, 1964
• The Modern Movement: 100 Key Books From England, France, and America, 1880–1950, 1965
• The Evening Colonnade 1973
• A Romantic Friendship, 1975
• Cyril Connolly: Journal and Memoir, 1983 (Edited by D. Pryce-Jones)
• Shade Those Laurels, 1990
• The Selected Works of Cyril Connolly, 2002 (edited by Matthew Connolly) Volume One: The Modern Movement: Volume Two: The Two Natures

Image File history File links Wikiquote-logo-en. ... Wikiquote is a sister project of Wikipedia, using the same MediaWiki software. ... 1935 (MCMXXXV) was a common year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... The Enemies of Promise is a critical and autobiographical work written by Cyril Connolly and first published in 1938. ... 1938 (MCMXXXVIII) was a common year starting on Saturday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1944 (MCMXLIV) was a leap year starting on Saturday (the link is to a full 1944 calendar). ... 1945 (MCMVL) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1945 calendar). ... 1952 (MCMLII) was a Leap year starting on Tuesday (link will take you to calendar). ... 1953 (MCMLIII) was a common year starting on Thursday. ... 1962 (MCMLXII) was a common year starting on Monday (the link is to a full 1962 calendar). ... 1964 (MCMLXIV) was a leap year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1964 calendar). ... 1965 (MCMLXV) was a common year starting on Friday (the link is to a full 1965 calendar). ... 1973 (MCMLXXIII) was a common year starting on Monday. ... 1975 (MCMLXXV) was a common year starting on Wednesday. ... 1983 (MCMLXXXIII) was a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ... This article is about the year. ... For album titles with the same name, see 2002 (album). ...

Biographies

• Clive Fisher (1995): Cyril Connolly, St Martin’s Press, New York, ISBN 0-312-13953-5
• Jeremy Lewis (1995): Cyril Connolly , A Life, Jonathan Cape, London, ISBN 0-224-03710-2

Reference

• Michael Shelden (1989): Friends of Promise: Cyril Connolly and the World of Horizon, Hamish Hamilton / Harper & Row, ISBN 0-06-016138-8

External links

• 100 key books
• Connolly Library description at the University of Tulsa
• Find-A-Grave profile for Cyril Connolly Cyril Connolly? No, Semi-Carnally!