- Stephen Hudson
Stephen Hudson was a
pseudonym of the British novelist Sydney Schiff (1868 –1944 ). He is now better remembered for his place as a piece in the social jigsaw around more celebrated artists. Independently wealthy, he divided his time mostly between London and the south of France.He was the host at a now-celebrated party in Paris on May 18, 1922, when
Marcel Proust metJames Joyce (without the slightest rapport), and other guests includedDiaghilev , Stravinsky andPicasso . The occasion was the first night of Stravinsky's "Renard". Schiff tried to get Picasso to paint a portrait of Proust, again abortively.At this period in the early 1920s he was in touch with major modernist figures. He was a patron of
Wyndham Lewis 's "The Tyro", and bought his paintings, waiting four years for an unfinished portrait of Violet. Lewis "repaid" the support by satirizing Schiff as Lionel Kein in "The Apes of God" (1930). Schiff also introducedJohn Middleton Murry to Joyce; though Joyce later gave the impression thatKatharine Mansfield , Murry's wife, has shown more understanding of "Ulysses". He and Violet also befriendedT. S. Eliot and Vivienne. Earlier, in 1918, he had helped finance theOsbert Sitwell publication "Art and Letters". Later they knewEdwin Muir and Wilma. He kept up a long correspondence withAldous Huxley , which has been published.He translated Proust, completing the Scott-Montcrieff version; "Sodome et Gomorrhe II" was dedicated to him and Violet. "Céleste", a story of Schiff's, was published in "
The Criterion " in 1924. In it Proust appears as the character Richard Kurt. Proust reciprocated by helping his novels into French translation.His sister Edith was mother-in-law of the French Proustian Louis Gautier-Vignal. His second wife Violet (nee Beddington, 1868-1944) was the sister of the novelist and friend of
Oscar Wilde ,Ada Leverson (1862 – 1933).Works
*"Concessions" (1913) as Sydney Schiff; other books as Stephen Hudson
*"War Time Silhouettes" (1916)
*"Elinor Colhouse" (1921)
*"Prince Hempseed" (1923)
*"In Sight of Chaos byHermann Hesse " (1923) translator
*"Tony" (1924)
*"Myrtle" (1925)
*"Richard, Myrtle and I" (1926)
*"A True Story in Three Parts and a Postscript" (1930)
*"Celeste and Other Sketches" (Blackamore Press, 1930)
*"The Other Side" (1937)References
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Richard Davenport-Hines (2006), "A Night at the Majestic", about the May 18 1922 dinnerExternal links
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