Lord David Cecil

Lord David Cecil CH
Born	Edward Christian David Gascoyne-Cecil (1902-04-09)9 April 1902 Hatfield House,Hertfordshire,England
Died	1 January 1986(1986-01-01)(aged 83) Cranborne,Dorset,England
Education	Eton College
Alma mater	Christ Church, Oxford
Occupations	Biographer Historian Academic
Employers	Wadham College, Oxford New College, Oxford
Spouse	Rachel MacCarthy ​ (m.1932)​
Children	3, includingJonathan
Parents	James Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury Lady Cicely Gore

Lord David Cecil (left) withT. S. Eliot,photo byLady Ottoline Morrell

Lord Edward Christian David Gascoyne-Cecil,CH(9 April 1902 – 1 January 1986) was a British biographer, historian, and scholar. He held the style of "Lord" bycourtesyas a younger son of a marquess.

Early life and studies

David Cecil was the youngest of the four children ofJames Gascoyne-Cecil, 4th Marquess of Salisbury,and the former Lady Cicely Gore (second daughter ofArthur Gore, 5th Earl of Arran). His siblings wereLady Beatrice Edith Mildred Cecil(afterwards Baroness Harlech),Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, 5th Marquess of Salisbury(1893–1972) and Lady Mary Alice Cecil (afterwardsMary Cavendish, Duchess of Devonshire). Cecil was a delicate child, suffering from a tubercular gland in his neck at the age of 8 years, and after an operation he spent a great deal of time in bed, where he developed his love of reading.

Because of his delicate health his parents sent him toEton Collegelater than other boys, and he survived the experience by spending one day a week in bed. After school he went on toChrist Church, Oxford,as an undergraduate.

Career

Cecil read Modern History at Oxford and in 1924 obtained first-class honours. From 1924 to 1930 he was a Fellow ofWadham College, Oxford.With his first publication,The Stricken Deer(1929), a sympathetic study of the poetCowper,he made an immediate impact as a literary historian. Studies followed onWalter Scott,early Victorian novelists andJane Austen.

In 1939 he became aFellowofNew College, Oxford,where he remained a Fellow until 1969, when he became an Honorary Fellow.

In 1947 he became Professor ofRhetoricatGresham College,London, for a year; but in 1948 he returned to theUniversity of Oxfordand remained a Professor of English Literature there until 1970. For a time Cecil was an associate of the literary group known as the "Inklings",which included notable authors such asJ.R.R. Tolkien,C.S. Lewis,andOwen Barfield.While a professor at New College Cecil's pupils includedKingsley Amis,Bidhu Bhusan Das,R. K. Sinha,John Bayley,theMiltonscholar Dennis Burden, andLudovic Kennedy.Neil Powell describes Amis's relationship with him, or lack of a relationship, as follows:

[Amis's] allocated supervisor was Lord David Cecil, who seemed disinclined to supervise anything at all; after a term and a half had passed without any contact between them, Kingsley decided to go in search of him at New College. This caused much amusement at the porters' lodge, as if he had asked for the Shah of Persia: "Oh no, sir. Lord David? Oh, you'd have to get up very early in the morning to get hold of him. Oh dear, oh dear. Lord David in college, well I never did."

During his academic career Cecil published studies ofHardy,Shakespeare,Thomas Gray,Dorothy OsborneandWalter Pater.As well as his literary studies he also published a two-volume historical biography ofLord Melbourne(to whom he was distantly related) and appreciations of visual artists –Augustus John,Max Beerbohm,Samuel PalmerandEdward Burne-Jones.In retirement he published further literary and biographic studies ofWalter de la Mare,Jane Austen,Charles LambandDesmond MacCarthy,as well as a history of his own family,The Cecils of Hatfield Houseand an account ofSome Dorset Country Houses.His anthology of writers who had given him special pleasure,Library Looking Glass,appeared in 1975.

Family and personal life

In 1932 Cecil married Rachel MacCarthy, daughter of the literary journalistSir Desmond MacCarthy.They had three children, including actorJonathan Cecil.

Publications

The Young Melbourne
Pan Books edition, 1948

• The Stricken Deer or The Life of Cowper(1929) [on the poetWilliam Cowper;this won the 1929James Tait Black Memorial Prize]
• Sir Walter Scott: The Raven Miscellany(1933)
• Early Victorian Novelists: essays in revaluation(1934)
• Jane Austen(1936)
• The Young Melbourne and the Story of his Marriage with Caroline Lamb(1939; reprinted 1948 and 1954)
• The English Poets(1941)
• TheOxford Book of Christian Verse(1941) [editor]
• Men of the R.A.F.(1942) [withSir William Rothenstein]
• Hardy the Novelist: an Essay in Criticism(1942) [Clark Lectures]
• Antony and Cleopatra, the fourth W. P. Ker memorial lecture delivered in the University of Glasgow, 4 May 1943(1944)
• Poetry of Thomas Gray(1945) [Warton Lecture]
• Two Quiet Lives(1948) [onDorothy OsborneandThomas Gray]
• Poets & Story-tellers(1949) [essays]
• Reading as One of the Fine Arts(1949) inaugural lecture delivered before the University of Oxford on 28 May 1949
• Lord M, or the Later Life of Lord Melbourne(1954)
• Walter Pater--the Scholar Artist(1955)Rede Lecture
• Augustus John: Fifty-two Drawings(1957)
• The Fine Art of Reading and Other Literary Studies(1957)
• Modern Verse in English 1900-1950(1958) [editor withAllen Tate]
• Max(1964) [biography ofMax Beerbohm]
• Visionary and Dreamer: Two poetic painters, Samuel Palmer & Edward Burne-Jones(from the A.W. Mellon Lectures, 1969)
• The Bodley Head Beerbohm(1970) [editor]
• Max Beerbohm: Selected Prose(1970) [editor]
• A Choice of Tennyson's Verse(1971) [editor]
• The Cecils of Hatfield House: a Portrait of an English Ruling Family(1973)
• Walter de la Mare(1973) [English Association leaflet]
• A Victorian Album: Julia Margaret Cameron and her Circle(1975) [with Graham Ovenden]
• Library Looking-Glass: A Personal Anthology(1975) [anthology]
• Lady Ottoline's Album(1976)
• A Portrait of Jane Austen(1978)
• A Portrait of Charles Lamb(1983)
• Desmond MacCarthy, the Man and His Writings(1984) [editor]
• SomeDorsetCountry Houses(1985)
• A Choice ofBridges'sVerse(1987) [editor]

See also

The Uffizi Society, Oxford, c. 1920. Ralph Dutton (wearing glasses) is seated third from left. Also in the front row are Lord Balniel, later 28th Earl of Crawford (2nd from left);Anthony Eden,subsequently Prime Minister and Earl of Avon (4th from left); and Lord David Cecil (5th from left). Second row: later Sir Henry Studholme (5th from left).

• List ofGresham Professors of Rhetoric

References

Other sources

• Glyer, Diana (2007)The Company They Keep: C. S. Lewis and J. R. R. Tolkien as Writers in Community.ISBN978-0-87338-890-0

Further reading

• David Cecil – A Portrait by his Friends Collected And Introduced By Hannah Cranborne(Dovecote Press, 1990)

External links

• David CecilatLibrary of Congress,with 80 library catalogue records