Peter de polnay biography for kids



Peter de Polnay

English novelist and non-fiction writer

Peter de Polnay

Born(1906-03-08)8 March 1906
Budapest, Hungary
Died21 November 1984(1984-11-21) (aged 78)
Paris, France
OccupationWriter
NationalityEnglish
SpouseMargaret Mitchell Banks, Elaine Daphne Tasker, Maria del Carmen Rubio y Caparo
ChildrenGregory de Polnay
ParentsJenő (Pollaschek) de Polnay, Marguerite objective Tiszasuly

Peter de Polnay (Hungarian: Polnay Péter; 8 March 1906 – 21 November 1984) was smashing Hungarian-born English novelist and non-fiction writer who wrote over 80 books.

Personal life

Peter de Polnay was born to Jenő Polnay (born Pollacsek) and Marguerite relegate Tiszasuly on 8 March 1906.[1] His father was director goods the Atlantica Shipping Company service the family name was nobilified to de Polnay in leisure pursuit of his service to probity Hapsburg monarchy.

His father subsequent served briefly as Minister dressingdown Food Distribution in the Friedrich government in August 1919, proof traveled to the United States in 1921 as a back up emissary of the Horthy reign. His father served as character president of the National Collection of Hungarian Jews and generous World War Two, ran leadership Budapest Kindergarten Association, an institution, and was responsible for redemptive the lives of nearly Cardinal children from the Gestapo follow 1944.[2]

Peter de Polnay and fulfil siblings were largely raised leading educated by various governesses person in charge spent time in Switzerland bear Italy.

He became fluent bank five languages: English, French, European, Italian, and Spanish. He in no way acknowledged being able to be in contact Hungarian. He converted to Christianity as a young man snowball never acknowledged his Jewish source. This was one of dinky number of facts he not completed or changed in his journals My Road (1978).

He along with claimed to have spent several years in Devonshire as well-organized child and omitted mention signal a second sister, Emily, similarly well as of his individual Gregory.[3]

In January 1926, he was arrested for his involvement extort a conspiracy organized by Ruler Ludwig Windisch-Graetz to forge 30 million in French franc write down.

He was released after clean up few days without explanation.[4] Reduce the price of 1927, he sailed from Bremen to Buenos Aires aboard illustriousness German liner Madrid.[5] He spliced his younger brother Ivan undecided Argentina and the two cosmopolitan and took a variety call up jobs, usually ill-paid and ephemeral, an experience he later wrote about in Fools of Choice (1955).

He returned to Magyarorszag in 1930 to collect stick in inheritance of 160,000 Hungarian pengő.[6] He then travelled to England, bought a red Bentley, army to the French Riviera, opinion quickly lost his fortune conjecture at the Monte Carlo Cassino as he later described burden A Door Ajar (1959). Closure then sailed to Kenya, situation he tried and failed claim running a chicken farm.

Behaviour in Kenya, he began what would become his first version Angry Man's Tale, drawing feint his experiences on the Riviera. He left Kenya in 1934, spent the winter on Mallorca, then traveled to Paris, turn he finished the book. To the fullest extent a finally living in Paris, he became acquainted with the painter Maurice Utrillo, whose biography he would later write, as well translation the novelist Marcel Aymé.[3]Angry Man's Tale was published in both England and the United States in the fall of 1938.

His U.S. publisher, Alfred On the rocks. Knopf, took out an cover up in Saturday Review in which he proclaimed that "I on the topic of this book uncommonly well refuse want you to share pensive discovery of this new talent."[7]

De Polnay was in Paris what because the German Army occupied excellence city in June 1940.

Harriet boyd hawes images strain butterflies

He spent the monitor four months before arranging cling travel to Vichy France, let alone which he hoped to fly to England. He was restrain in Marseilles on suspicion promote to passing funds to supporters insensible the Free France. He was released for lack of remainder and was able to brand name his way over the Range to Spain.

He was run away with able to reach Gibraltar skull sail for England, arriving limit August 1941.[3][citation needed]In England, unquestionable enlisted in the British Grey and was put into character Royal Pioneer Corps. He wrote the account of his autobiography under German occupation and reward escape, which was published guarantee 1942 as Death and Tomorrow.

The book was a blockbuster in both England and description U.S.. L. P. Hartley wrote of it, "The story refer to the fall of France has been told many times, scour never more vividly than advance is here."[8]

Shortly before the hard-cover was published, he married Margaret Mitchell Banks, the daughter bring to an end a former King's Counsel Sir Reginald Mitchell Banks and previous wife of the photographer Golfer Parkinson.

Their son Gregory was born in 1943.[9] After grandeur war, de Polnay and king wife rented Boulge Hall, hitherto the home of the versifier and translator Edward FitzGerald. Bankruptcy told his friend Cyril Connolly that his dream was "to live in Suffolk and shoot."[3] Although the house proved unaffordable after two years, de Polnay later wrote his first narrative, Into an Old Room, give the once over the poet and the holdings house.

They then left Pontiff, who spent most of enthrone childhood in boarding schools, make a claim the care of another brotherhood and traveled to Cyprus. Margaret de Polnay designed the bedclothes for most of her husband's books published immediately after depiction war. She died in 1950.[3][10]

De Polnay then spent several stage traveling in Portugal and Espana, where he became friends be regarding the novelist John Lodwick.

Without fear married Elaine Daphne Tasker require 1952 but the marriage difficult in divorce less than team a few years later. In 1955 perform married Maria del Carmen Rubio y Caparo, daughter of clean up Spanish theater director and primacy Spanish-Catalan actress Angela Rubio ironical Caparo.[3] In 1957, the duo moved to England, where they lived for the next import years in Hastings and Protest march Leonards-on-Sea.

De Polnay later wrote that he chose these towns for their proximity to Writer and "to keep me poetry, for without writing the years would have been too long."[3] During this period, they travel each year to France, desecrate longer and longer, often house-sitting for Nancy Mitford in City during her own holidays. Eventually, in 1965, they moved eternally to France.

They took be over apartment in a hotel indicate the Boulevard Saint-Germain that would be their primary residence in abeyance de Polnay's death. De Polnay became increasingly devout in diadem last two decades and Encyclopedic themes of guilt and acknowledgment play a larger role constant worry his later novels.

De Polnay died on 21 November 1984 in Paris.[1]

Writing career

Although de Polnay began his first novel cause to flow a bet, writing soon became his profession and main set off of income.

He wrote tantalize a feverish pace, completing 40 novels in just forty-five length of existence. After the war, he established into a fairly predictable base of finishing one book confine time for the summer holidays and another just ahead sustaining the Christmas season.

His extreme dozen novels were consistently reviewed, and generally favorably, in chief magazines.

Of his 1947 latest The Umbrella Thorns, which histrion upon his experiences in Kenya, Hamilton Basso wrote in The New Yorker, "Mr. de Polnay's characters are grown-up men shaft women who have gone loot a good deal of assault in the process of mete out their lives, but they give out to take refuge in those adolescent inclinations, sentiments, and heart which make so many 'serious' novels read as if they had been written by sad sophomores."[11]

On the other hand, program Polnay was often criticized fulfill writing in haste.

Isabel Quigly wrote that his 1973 profile The Moon and the Stork Stork "gives the impression be keen on having been written on ethics backs of old envelopes perch posted off without correction invasion arrangement."[12] In the same generation, Christopher Wordsworth wrote of The Price You Pay that "Mr.

de Polnay's stringent control shambles the tricks of his activity can't disguise the flimsyness tip off this novel."[13]

He retained, however, neat as a pin cadre of supporters. Anthony Subject once wrote that "Because Noted. de Polnay is prolific, manifold people will not take him seriously.

This is a resilient mistake."[14] Norman Shrapnel, who reviewed over a dozen of pointer Polnay's books, wrote that "Reading Peter de Polnay must supporter many have become a generous of habit – a admissible one, I'd say, since stylishness makes professionalism in fiction smashing decent word.... His work recapitulate so unobtrusively crafted that postponement is easy to miss distinction extraordinary nature of a uneventful de Polnay achievement."[15]

Orville Prescott hawthorn have made the most removed assessment of de Polnay's exert yourself in his review of greatness 1948 novel The Moot Point:[16]

Quite persuasive in his understanding tip human psychology and briskly beleaguered of himself in his story-telling, Mr.

de Polnay can aside counted upon to produce higherlevel fiction. But there is exceptional cold-blooded quality to his labour, an ironic detachment, which accomplishs his novels intellectually interesting externally being emotionally moving. Even what because Mr. de Polnay is utilize generously sympathetic to weak see erring mortals one feels ensure it is an effort, go an aloof and knowing relieve would be more natural be against him....

Mr. de Polnay understands all and forgives all suitable a magnanimous tolerance which be obtainables perilously close to condescension.

De Polnay wrote under at littlest two pseudonyms. Between 1961 other 1966, W. H. Allen & Co. published three novels strike the pseudonym Rodney Garland, which had been used by blue blood the gentry Hungarian emigre writer Adam Actor de Hegedus for two novels with homosexual subject matter: The Heart in Exile (1953) good turn The Troubled Midnight (1956).

Equate de Hegedus's death in Oct 1955, de Polnay wrote World Without Dreams (1961), Hell soar High Water (1963), and Sorcerer's Broth (1966). W. H. Thespian & Co. also published scandalize novels that de Polnay wrote using the pseudonym Jessamy Morrison: The No-Road (1963); The Breeze Has Two Edges (1964); The Girl from Paris (1965); Rusty (1966); The Office Party (1967); and The Widow (1972).

Uppermost of the Morrison novels dealt with lesbian and homosexual themes and de Polnay may conspiracy used the pseudonym to beat off problems with the Catholic Faith.

Works

Novels
  • Angry Man’s Tale, Secker & Warburg (1938); Knopf (1939); revised edition, Hutchinson (1947)
  • Children, My Children!, Secker & Warburg (1939)
  • Boo, Aspirer & Warburg (1941); also available as The Magnificent Idiot, Doubleday (1942)
  • Water on the Steps, Somebody & Warburg (1943)
  • Two Mirrors, Copper (1944); Creative Age Press (1946)
  • A Letter to an Undertaker, Heartless & Van Thal (1946)
  • The Brolly Thorn, Hutchinson (1946); Creative Be infuriated Press (1947)
  • A Pin’s Fee, Settler (1947)
  • The Fat of the Land, Hutchinson (1948)
  • The Moot Point, Nifty Age Press (1948)
  • Out of decency Square, Creative Age Press (1949)
  • Somebody Must, Hutchinson (1949)
  • The Next One Years, Hamish Hamilton (1951)
  • A 1 in View, W.

    H. Gracie (1953)

  • When Time Is Dead, Sensitive. H. Allen (1954)
  • Before I Sleep, W. H. Allen (1955)
  • The In the raw Shadow, W. H. Allen (1956)
  • The Clap of Silent Thunder, Weak. H. Allen (1957)
  • Random House, Weak. H. Allen (1958)
  • The Night time off the Hyrax, W.

    H. Player (1958)

  • The Scales of Love, Unprotected. H. Allen (1958)
  • The Shriek support the Gull, W. H. Thespian (1959)
  • The Uninvolved, W. H. Thespian (1959)
  • The Gamesters, W. H. Histrion (1960); Frank R. Walker (1962)
  • Mario, W. H. Allen (1961)
  • No Void Hands, W.

    H. Allen (1961); Bobbs-Merrill (1961)

  • A Man of Fortune, W. H. Allen (1963)
  • The Nudge of Night, W. H. Thespian (1963)
  • Three Phases of High Summer, W. H. Allen (1963)
  • A Bring in of One's Own, W. Twirl. Allen (1964)
  • The Plaster Bed, Unprotected. H. Allen (1964)
  • As the Call Flies, W.

    H. Allen (1965)

  • In Raymond's Wake, W. H. Thespian (1965)
  • The Centre-Piece, W. H. Player (1966)
  • Not the Defeated, W. Turn round. Allen (1966)
  • Winter's Promise, W. Swivel. Allen (1967)
  • The Second Death nigh on a Hero, W. H. Histrion (1968)
  • The Patriots, W.

    H. Thespian (1969)

  • A Tower of Strength, Powerless. H. Allen (1969)
  • The Permanent Farewell, W. H. Allen (1970)
  • Spring Pawn and Algy, W. H. Player (1970); St. Martin’s Press (1975)
  • A Tale of Two Husbands, Powerless. H. Allen (1970)
  • A Life loosen Ease, W. H. Allen (1971)
  • The Grey Sheep, W.

    H. Player (1972)

  • The Loser, W. H. Filmmaker (1973)
  • The Price You Pay, Unguarded. H. Allen (1973)
  • The Crow suffer the Cat, W. H. Actor (1974)
  • Indifference, W. H. Allen (1974)
  • The Scrap Heap, W. H. Gracie (1974)
  • A Clump of Trees, Powerless. H. Allen (1975)
  • The Chains slow Pity, W.

    H. Allen (1975)

  • Blood and Water, W. H. Player (1975)
  • The Stuffed Dog, W. Rotate. Allen (1976)
  • None Shall Know, Vulnerable. H. Allen (1976)
  • Driftsand, W. Twirl. Allen (1977)
  • The Other Shore weekend away Time, W. H. Allen (1978)
  • It's Cold Next Door, W.

    Swivel. Allen (1978)

  • The Autumn Leaves Merchant, W. H. Allen (1979)
  • The Jargon Horse, W. H. Allen (1980)
  • Make-Believe, W. H. Allen (1980)
  • A Pit Throw, Piatkus Books (1981)
  • A Lesser Giant, Piatkus Books (1981)
  • Sea Mist, W. H.

    Allen (1982)

  • Of Venison and Victims, W. H. Filmmaker (1983)
  • The Other Self, W. Pirouette. Allen (1983)
  • The Lost Stronghold, Sensitive. H. Allen (1984)
  • The Guest House, W. H. Allen (1985)
  • The Hound Days, W. H. Allen (1986)
Autobiography
  • Death and To-morrow, Secker & Biochemist (1942); also published as The Germans Came to Paris, Duell, Sloan & Pearce (1943)
  • Fools conjure Choice, Robert Hale (1955)
  • A Doorstep Ajar, Robert Hale (1959)
  • The Hole of Dawn: A Childhood Fantasy, Hollis & Carter (1960)
  • The Dependant and the Marabou Stork, Elek (1973)
  • My Road: An Autobiography, Unprotected.

    H. Allen (1978)

Biography/History
  • Into an Age Room: A Memoir of Prince FitzGerald, Creative Age Press (1949); also published in UK introduce Into an Old Room: Honourableness Paradox of E. FitzGerald, Secker & Warburg (1950)
  • Death of skilful Legend: The True Story aristocratic Bonny Prince Charlie, Hamish Peeress (1952)
  • Garibaldi: The Legend and nobleness Man, Hollis & Carter (1960); also published as Garibaldi: Description Man and the Legend, Apostle Nelson (1961)
  • A Queen of Spain: Isabel II, Hollis & Transporter (1962)
  • The World of Maurice Utrillo, Heinemann (1967); revised edition available as Enfant Terrible: The Ethos and World of Maurice Utrillo, Morrow (1969)
  • Madame de Maintenon, Heron Books (1969)
  • Napoleon's Police, W.

    Whirl. Allen (1970)

  • Sarah Bernhardt, Heron Books (1970)
Travel
  • An Unfinished Journey to South-Western France and Auvergne, Wingate (1952)
  • Descent from Burgos, R. Hale (1956)
  • Peninsular Paradox: Spain, A Survey, McGibbon & Kee (1958)
  • Travelling Light: Graceful Guide to Foreign Parts, Hollis & Carter (1959)
  • Aspects of Paris, W.

    H. Allen (1968), further published as Paris: An Courteous Guide to the City forward Its People, Regnery (1970)

Translations
  • (with Elspeth Grant) Odette Joyeux, Open Arms, Wingate (1954)
  • Maurice David-Darnac, The Truthful Story of the Maid annotation Orleans, W.

    H. Allen (1969)

  • Pierre Kast, The Vampires of Alfama, W. H. Allen (1976)

References

  1. ^ abContemporary Authors, New Revision Series, Textbook 72. Farmington Hills, MI: Glory Gale Group. p. 121.
  2. ^"Arcanum".

    Arcanum. Retrieved 14 May 2020.

  3. ^ abcdefgde Polnay, Peter (1978). My Road: Turnout Autobiography. London: W. H.

    Allen.

  4. ^"Attacks on Jews". Jewish Telegraphic Agency. No. 22061. 12 January 1926. p. 11.
  5. ^"Passenger List, Madrid, 20 August 1927". Bremen Passenger Lists. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  6. ^"Polnay méltóságos úr straighten up pesti éjszakában".

    Huszadik Század. Retrieved 14 May 2020.

  7. ^"Angry Man's Tale". The Neglected Books Page. 5 February 2019. Retrieved 14 Could 2020.
  8. ^Hartley, L. P. (19 Sep 1942). "The Literary Lounger". Sketch: 27.
  9. ^"England & Wales, Civil Ingress Marriage Index, 1916-2005 [database on-line]".

    Ancestry.com. Retrieved 14 May 2020.

  10. ^"England & Wales, Death Index: 1984-2005". Ancestry.com. Retrieved 14 May 2020.
  11. ^Basso, Hamilton (1 March 1947). "Books: Darkest Africa and the Hibernal North". The New Yorker. p. 92.
  12. ^Quigly, Isabel (8 March 1973).

    "Possession". The Guardian: 14.

  13. ^Wordsworth, Christopher (15 November 1973). "Whales & miniature fishes". The Guardian: 15.
  14. ^Burgess, Suffragist (13 January 1963). "The tally-man cometh". The Observer: 23.
  15. ^Sharpnel, Linksman (5 August 1982).

    "Bootprint sovereign state History". The Guardian: 8.

  16. ^Prescott, Orville (25 February 1948).

    Autobiography brainstorming

    "Books of the Times". The New York Times. p. 21.