Hector Bolitho

(Henry) Hector Bolitho (28 May 1897 - 12 September 1974) was a prolific author, novelist and biographer. In total, he had 59 books published.

Bolitho was born in Auckland, New Zealand, the son of Henry and Ethelred Frances Bolitho. He travelled in South Sea Islands in 1919 and then through New Zealand with the Prince of Wales in 1920. He travelled in Africa, Australia, Canada, America, and Germany in 1923-4, finally settling in Britain where he was to remain for the rest of his life.

On his arrival in Britain he worked as a freelance journalist. At the start of World War II he joined the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve (RAFVR) as an intelligence officer with the rank of squadron leader, editing the "Royal Air Force Weekly Bulletin", which in 1941 became the "Royal Air Force Journal". In 1942 he was appointed editor of the "Coastal Command Intelligence Review".

Bolitho undertook several lecture tours of America (in 1938-39, 1947, 1948, and 1949).

Bolitho was homosexual and was in a long-term relationship with Derek Peel, an army officer, from 1949 until Bolitho's death in 1974.

Bibliography

* "The Island of Kawau" 1919
* "The Islands of Wonder" 1920
* "With the Prince in New Zealand" 1920
* "Solemn Boy" (novel) 1927
* "The Letters of Lady Augusta Stanley" 1927
* "Thistledown and Thunder" 1928
* "The New Zealanders" 1928
* "Judith Silver" (novel) 1929
* "The New Countries" 1929
* "The Later Letters of Lady Augusta Stanley" 1929
* "The Glorious Oyster" 1929
* (with Very Rev. A. V. Baillie) "A Victorian Dean: A Memoir of Arthur Stanley" 1930
* "The Flame on Ethirdova" (novel) 1930
* "Albert the Good, a Life of the Prince Consort" 1932
* "Alfred Mond: First Baron Melchett, a biography" 1933
* "Beside Galilee: a Diary in Palestine" 1933
* "The Prince Consort and his Brother" 1934
* "Victoria, the Widow and her Son" 1934
* (with Terence Rattigan) "Grey Farm" (play) performed 1934
* "Older People" 1935
* "The House in Half Moon Street" (short stories) 1935
* "James Lyle MacKay, First Earl of Inchcape" 1936
* "Marie Tempest: a Biography" 1936
* "King Edward VIII: his Life and Reign" 1937
* "Royal Progress" 1937
* "George VI" 1937
* "Victoria and Albert" 1938
* (ed) "Further Letters of Queen Victoria" 1938
* "Victoria and Disraeli" (radio play) performed 1938
* (with John Mulgan) "The Emigrants" 1939
* "Roumania under King Carol" 1939
* "America Expects" 1940
* "War in the Strand" 1942
* "Combat Report" 1943
* "No Humour in My Love" (short stories) 1946
* "Task for Coastal Command" 1946
* "The Romance of Windsor Castle" 1947
* "The Reign of Queen Victoria" 1948
* "A Biographer's Notebook" 1950
* "A Century of British Monarchy" 1951
* "Their Majesties" 1951
* (with Derek Peel) "Without the City Wall" 1952
* "Jinnah, Creator of Pakistan" 1954
* "A Penguin in the Eyrie" 1955
* "The Wine of the Douro" 1956
* "The Angry Neighbours" 1957
* "No 10, Downing Street" 1957
* "My Restless Years" (autobiography) 1962
* "The Galloping Third" 1963
* "Albert, Prince Consort" 1964, rev. edn, 1970
* (with Derek Peel) "The Drummonds of Charing Cross" 1967
* He also edited "The British Empire" Published Batsford 1947-8

External links

* [http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/50314 Dictionary of National Biography]