Jump to content

Michael Sadleir

Add links
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael Sadleir
BornMichael Thomas Harvey Sadler
(1888-12-25)25 December 1888
Oxford,England
Died13 December 1957(1957-12-13)(aged 68)
The London Clinic,London,England[1]
Occupation
NationalityBritish
Alma materBalliol College, Oxford
Period20th century
Genre
SpouseEdith "Betty" Tupper-Carey (1914–his death)
ChildrenAnn Penelope Hornby (née Sadler)
Michael Thomas Carey Sadler
Richard Ferribee Sadler
ParentsSir Michael Ernest Sadler(father)
RelativesMary Ann Harvey(mother)

Michael Sadleir(25 December 1888 – 13 December 1957[2]), bornMichael Thomas Harvey Sadler,was a British publisher, novelist, book collector, andbibliographer.

Biography

[edit]
Bookplate of Michael Sadleir
Michael Sadleir's grave and memorial at Bisley Burial Ground,Bisley,Gloucestershire, England

Michael Sadleir was born inOxford, England,the son ofSir Michael Ernest Sadlerand Mary Sadler.[3]He adopted the older variant of his surname to differentiate himself from his father, a historian, educationist, andVice-Chancellorof theUniversity of Leeds.[4][5]Sadleir was initially taught byEva Gilpinin Ilkley[6]before he was educated atRugby Schooland was a contemporary ofRupert Brooke,with whom he was romantically involved, andGeoffrey Keynes.[7]He then attendedBalliol College, Oxford,where he read history and won the 1912Stanhope essay prizeon the political career ofRichard Brinsley Sheridan.[8]Before theFirst World War,Sadleir and his father were keen collectors of art,[9]and purchased works by young English artists such asStanley SpencerandMark Gertler.[10][11]They were amongst the first collectors (and certainly the first English collectors) of the paintings of the Russian-bornGerman ExpressionistartistWassily Kandinsky.[12][13]In 1913, both Sadleir and his father travelled to Germany to meet Kandinsky inMunich.[14]This visit led to Sadleir translating into English Kandinsky's seminal written work onexpressionism,Concerning the Spiritual in Artin 1914. This was one of the first coherent arguments forabstract artin the English language and the translation by Sadleir was seen as both crucial to understanding Kandinsky's theories about abstract art and as a key text in the history ofmodernism.[15]Extracts from it were published in theVorticistliterary magazineBLASTin 1914,[16]and it remained one of the most influential art texts of the first decades of the twentieth century.[17]

Sadleir began to work for the publishing firm ofConstable & Co.in 1912, becoming a director in 1920,[18]and chairman in 1954.[citation needed]In 1920 as editor ofBliss and Other StoriesbyKatherine Mansfieldfor Constable he insisted on censoring sections of her short storyJe ne parle pas françaiswhich show the cynical attitudes to love and sex of the narrator. Her husbandJohn Middleton Murrypersuaded Sadleir to reduce the cuts slightly (Murry and Sadleir had founded theavant-gardequarterlyRhythmin 1912).[19]

After the end of World War I, he served as a British delegate to theParis Peace Conference, 1919,and worked at the secretariat of the newly formedLeague of Nations.[18]As a literary historian, he specialised in 19th-century English fiction, notably the work ofAnthony Trollope.Together withIan Flemingand others, Sadleir was a director and contributor toThe Book Handbook,later renamedThe Book Collector,published byQueen Anne Press.He also conducted research onGothic fictionand discovered rare original editions of theNorthanger Horrid Novelsmentioned in the novelNorthanger AbbeybyJane Austen.Beforehand, some of these books, with their lurid titles, were thought to be figments of Austen's imagination.[20]Sadleir andMontague Summersdemonstrated that they did really exist. In 1937, he was theSandars Reader in BibliographyatCambridge University,on the subject of the "Bibliographical Aspects of the Victorian Novel".[21]He was President of theBibliographical Societyfrom 1944 to 1946.[22]

Sadleir's best-known novel wasFanny by Gaslight(1940), a fictional exploration of prostitution inVictorianLondon. It wasadaptedunder that name as a1944 film.The 1947 novelForlorn Sunsetfurther explored the characters of theVictorian Londonunderworld. His writings also include a biography of his father, published in 1949, and a privately published memoir of one of his sons, who was killed in World War II.

The remarkable collection ofVictorian fictioncompiled by Sadleir, now at theUCLADepartment of Special Collections, is the subject of a catalogue published in 1951. His collection ofGothic fictionis at the University of VirginiaAlbert and Shirley Small Special Collections Library.

Sadleir lived at Througham Court,Bisley,inGloucestershire,a fineJacobeanfarmhouse altered for him by the architectNorman Jewson,c. 1929.[23]He sold Througham Court in 1949[24][25]and moved to Willow Farm,Oakley Green,inBerkshire.[2]

Bibliography

[edit]
Michael Sadleir book sticker

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^Sadler, Michael (3 June 1958)."Probate Record".probatesearch.service.gov.uk.p. 4.Retrieved25 February2020.
  2. ^ab"Derek Hudson, 'Sadleir, Michael Thomas Harvey (1888–1957)', rev. Sayoni Basu,Oxford Dictionary of National Biography,Oxford University Press, 2004 (subscriber access only) ".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford University Press. 2004.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/35904.Retrieved9 May2008.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
  3. ^Michael Sadleir Papers, 1797–1958,unc.edu. Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  4. ^"Monopolising the Kicks",Yorkshire Evening Post,6 April 1923, p. 8. British Newspaper Archive. Retrieved 24 February 2020.(subscription required)
  5. ^Stokes, Roy (1980).Michael Sadleir, 1888-1957(loan required).Internet Archive. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow Press. p.4.ISBN9780810812925.
  6. ^Matthew, H. C. G.; Harrison, B., eds. (23 September 2004)."The Oxford Dictionary of National Biography".Oxford Dictionary of National Biography(online ed.). Oxford: Oxford University Press. pp. ref:odnb/71922.doi:10.1093/ref:odnb/71922.Retrieved18 February2023.(Subscription orUK public library membershiprequired.)
  7. ^Brooke, Rupert; Strachey, James (1998).Friends and Apostles: The Correspondence of Rupert Brooke and James Strachey, 1905-1914.Yale University Press. p. 8.ISBN978-0-300-07004-0.
  8. ^Sadleir, Michael; Sheridan, Elizabeth Ann (1912).The political career of Richard Brinsley Sheridan: the Stanhope essay for 1912: followed by some hitherto unpublished letters of Mrs. Sheridan.Oxford; London: B.H. Blackwell; Simpkin, Marshall & Co.OCLC1358737.
  9. ^Piper, John; Ernest Brown & Phillips (1944).Catalogue of an exhibition of selected paintings, drawings and sculpture from the collection of the late Sir Michael Sadler...: [exhibition] Ernest Brown & Phillips Ltd., the Leicester Galleries... London, Jan.-Feb., 1944.London: The Gallery.ISBN9781406731255.OCLC80686873.
  10. ^Tate."'The Roundabout', Sir Stanley Spencer, 1923 ".Tate.Retrieved24 February2020.
  11. ^Tate."'The Artist's Mother', Mark Gertler, 1911 ".Tate.Retrieved24 February2020.
  12. ^Glew, Adrian (1997). "'Blue Spiritual Sounds': Kandinsky and the Sadlers, 1911-16 ".The Burlington Magazine.139(1134): 600–615.ISSN0007-6287.JSTOR887464.(subscription required)
  13. ^"Bonhams: FRANZ MARC (1880-1916) Pferd (Executed in 1912)".bonhams.Retrieved24 February2020.
  14. ^Tom Steele,Alfred Orage and the Leeds Arts Club (1893–1923)(Aldershot, Ashgate 1990) p. 179.
  15. ^Tate."Important Kandinsky letters and poems fully published in English for the first time – Press Release".Tate.Retrieved24 February2020.
  16. ^"BLAST no. 1, the Vorticist magazine".The British Library.pp. 143–144.Retrieved24 February2020.
  17. ^Tate."Every work of art is the child of its time, often it is the mother of our emotions": Kandinsky – Tate Etc ".Tate.Retrieved24 February2020.
  18. ^ab"The Times Digital Archive - Mr. Michael Sadleir".go.gale.16 December 1957. p. 10.Retrieved24 February2020.(subscription required)
  19. ^Alpers, Antony, ed. (1984).The Stories of Katherine Mansfield.Auckland: Oxford University Press. pp. 551, 560.ISBN0-19-558113-X.
  20. ^Sadleir, Michael (1927).A Footnote to Jane Austen.Oxford: OUP.
  21. ^Waldoch, Laura (18 December 2014)."List of Sandars Readers and lecture subjects".lib.cam.ac.uk.Retrieved24 February2020.
  22. ^The Bibliographical Society – Past PresidentsArchived4 August 2009 at theWayback Machine,bibsoc.org.uk (archived webpage). Retrieved 15 July 2017.
  23. ^"Lower Througham Farm, Througham (Bisley)"(1930) [Extracts from a conveyance]. Bruton Knowles and Co of Gloucester, estate agents, surveyors and auctioneers, Series: Estate agency files, c.1870-1980s. Clarence Row, Alvin Street, Gloucester, Gloucestershire, England: Gloucestershire Archives, Gloucestershire County Council.
  24. ^"Bisley: Manors and other estates".British History Online.Retrieved25 February2020.
  25. ^Sadleir, M (1949).Berkshire Telephone Directory, Maidenhead Exchange.High Holborn: BT PLC. p. 117.
[edit]

Library collections

[edit]

Online editions

[edit]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Michael_Sadleir&oldid=1229709804"