Sitwell, Sir (Francis) Osbert 1892-1969
English writer

Born in London, the brother of Edith and Sacheverell Sitwell, he was educated at Eton. He served in the Brigade of Guards in World War I, and in 1916 was invalided home. This provided him with the opportunity to satirize war and the types of people who prosper ingloriously at home. Many of his satirical poems were collected in Argonaut and Juggernaut (1919) and Out of the Flame (1923). After the war he narrowed his literary acquaintance to his sister and brother, Ezra Pound, T S Eliot and Wyndham Lewis. The object of the group was the regeneration of arts and letters, and in this pursuit the Sitwells acquired notoriety, Osbert not least by his novel Before the Bombardment (1927), which anatomized the grandees of Scarborough and by implication the social orders in general. Neither this nor his other novel, Miracle on Sinai (1933), was successful, and his strength was always in short stories, especially those, like the collection Dumb Animal (1930), in which his delicacy of observation and natural compassion are more in evidence than his satire. He also wrote travel books, including Winters of Content (1932), and is best known for his five-volume autobiographical series, which begins with Left Hand: Right Hand (1944). Other collections of essays and stories include Penny Foolish (1935), Sing High, Sing Low (1944), Alive-Alive Oh (1947) and Pound Wise (1963).

Bibliography: J Lehman, A Nest of Tigers (1968)