L. P. Hartley

Leslie Poles Hartley (December 30, 1895 – December 13, 1972) was a British writer, known for novels and short stories. His best known work is "The Go-Between", which was made into a 1971 film with a star cast, in an adaptation by Harold Pinter. The book's opening sentence, "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there", has become almost proverbial.

He was born in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire. He was educated in Cliftonville, Thanet, then briefly at Clifton College, where he first met Clifford Henry Benn Kitchin, and at Harrow School.

In 1915 he went up to Balliol College, Oxford, to read modern history. There he befriended Aldous Huxley. In 1916 he joined the British Army. He was commissioned as an officer but for health reasons never left the United Kingdom. Invalided out, he returned to Oxford in 1919, where he gathered a number of literary friends, including Lord David Cecil.

He was published in "Oxford Poetry" in 1920 and then 1922. He edited "Oxford Outlook", with Gerald Howard and A. B. B. Valentine in 1920, in 1921 also with Basil Murray and M. C. Hollis. At this time he was introduced by Huxley to Lady Ottoline Morrell. Kitchin was at Oxford also, who introduced him to the Asquiths; Cynthia Asquith became a lifelong friend. Despite being named for Leslie Stephen, he always belonged to the rather louche Asquith milieu, and was rebuffed by the Bloomsbury group.

Success came with having his first writing published and becoming a reviewer after his Oxford degree. Though this gave him rapid social elevation his life remained very strained, and in 1922 he suffered a nervous breakdown. He shortly started spending much time in Venice, as he did for many years.

Until the success of "The Go-Between" he counted as a somewhat snobbish minor writer. He did, however, receive a measure of recognition in being awarded the 1947 James Tait Black Memorial Prize for "Eustace and Hilda " and later through the CBE he was awarded in 1956.

There is a critical analysis of Hartley's ghost stories in Jack Sullivan's book "Elegant Nightmares: The English Ghost Story From Le Fanu to Blackwood" (1978). A critical essay on Hartley's ghost stories appears in S. T. Joshi's book "The Evolution of the Weird Tale" (2004).

Works

*"Night Fears" (1924), short stories
*"Simonetta Perkins" (1925)
*"The Killing Bottle" (1932), short stories
*"The Shrimp and the Anemone" (1944), Eustace and Hilda Trilogy I
*"The West Window" (1945)
*"The Sixth Heaven" (1946), Eustace and Hilda Trilogy II
*"Eustace and Hilda" (1947), Eustace and Hilda Trilogy III
*"The Travelling Grave and Other Stories" (1948), short stories
*"The Boat" (1949)
*"My Fellow Devils" (1951)
*"The Go-Between" (1953)
*"The White Wand and Other Stories" (1954), short stories
*"A Perfect Woman" (1955)
*"The Hireling" (1957)
*"Facial Justice" (1960)
*"The Bachelors" (1960), with Muriel Spark
*"Two for the River" (1961), short stories
*"The Brickfield" (1964)
*"The Betrayal" (1966)
*"Essays by Divers Hands", Volume XXXIV (1966), editor
*"The Novelist's Responsibility" (1967), essays
*"Poor Clare" (1968)
*"The Collected Short Stories of L. P. Hartley" (1968)
*"The Love-Adept: A Variation on a Theme" (1969)
*"My Sisters' Keeper" (1970)
*"Mrs. Carteret Receives" (1971), short stories
*"The Harness Room" (1971)
*"The Collections: A Novel" (1972)
*"The Will and the Way" (1973)
*"The Complete Short Stories of L. P. Hartley" (1973)
*"The Collected Macabre Stories" (2001)

References

*Peter Bien (1963), "L. P. Hartley"
*E. T. Jones (1978), "L. P. Hartley"
*Anne Mulkeen (1974), "Wild Thyme, Winter Lightning: The Symbolic Novels of L. P. Hartley"
*Adrian Wright (1996), "Foreign Country: The Life of L. P. Hartley"