Lost Years
Authors: Christopher Isherwood
Contents
Lost Years: January 1, 1945âMay 9, 1951
Christopher Isherwood settled in California in 1939 and spent the war years writing for Hollywood, but by 1945 he had all but ceased to write fiction and even abandoned his habit of keeping a diary. Instead he embarked on a life of frantic socialising and drinking. Looking back from the 1970s, Isherwood recreated these years from personal memories to form a remarkably honest mixture of private and social history.
Christopher Isherwood, among the most celebrated writers of his generation, was born in Cheshire in 1904. He left Cambridge without graduating, briefly studied medicine and then turned to writing his first novels
All the Conspirators
(1928) and
The Memorial
(1932). Between 1929 and 1939 he lived mostly abroad, spending four years in Berlin, and then elsewhere in Europe, producing the novels
Mr Norris Changes Trains
(1935) and
Goodbye to Berlin
(1939) on which the musical
Cabaret
was later based. Following his move to America (he became a US citizen in 1946), Isherwood wrote another five novels, including
Down There on a Visit
and
A Single Man,
a travel book about South America and a biography of the great Indian mystic Ramakrishna. During the 1970s he began producing a series of autobiographical books:
Kathleen and Frank, Christopher and his Kind, My Guru and His Disciple
and
October,
the text of one month of his diary published with drawings by Don Bachardy. Christopher Isherwood died in January 1986.
KATHERINE BUCKNELL
Katherine Bucknell is the editor of Christopher Isherwood's
Diaries Volume 1: 1939â1960
and W H Auden's
Juvenilia: Poems 1922â1928.
She also co-edits the Oxford University Press series
Auden Studies
and is co-founder of the W H Auden Society.
Novels
All the Conspirators
The Memorial
Mr Norris Changes Trains
Goodbye to Berlin
Prater Violet
The World in the Evening
Down There on a Visit
A Single Man
A Meeting by the River
Â
Lions and Shadows
Kathleen and Frank
Christopher and his Kind
My Guru and His Disciple
October
Â
Ramakrishna and His Disciples
Â
The Dog Beneath the Skin
The Ascent of F6
On the Frontier
Â
Journey to a War
(with W H Auden)
The Condor and the Crows
Â
Exhumations
Where Joy Resides
Â
Volume 1: 1939â1960
1904
August 26, Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood, first child of Frank Bradshaw Isherwood and Kathleen Bradshaw Isherwood (
née
Machell Smith), born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire, on the estate of his grandfather, John Bradshaw Isherwood, squire of nearby Marple Hall.
1911
October 1, Isherwood's brother Richard Graham Bradshaw Isherwood born.
1914
May 1, Isherwood arrives at his preparatory school, St. Edmund's, Hindhead, Surrey; August 4, Britain declares war on Germany and Isherwood's father receives mobilization orders; September 8, Frank Isherwood leaves for France.
1915
May 8 or 9, Frank Isherwood evidently wounded at Ypres, probably killed.
1917
January 1, Isherwood begins keeping a diary; he records walking with W. H. Auden at school.
1919
January 17, Isherwood arrives at Repton, his public school, near Derby.
1921
Winter, Isherwood joins G. B. Smith's history form, where he meets Edward Upward, at Repton; November, Kathleen Isherwood moves with her mother to 36 St. Mary Abbot's Terrace in West Kensington, London.
1923
October 10, Isherwood goes up with an £80 history scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, where he renews his friendship with Edward Upward.
1924
Isherwood and Upward start keeping diaries and begin to invent a fantasy world, Mortmere, about which they write stories.
1925
June 1, Cambridge Tripos exams begin; June 18, Isherwood is summoned to Cambridge to explain his joke Tripos answers and withdraws from university; August, takes job as secretary to André Mangeot's string quartet; December, meets W. H. Auden and renews prep school friendship.
1926
Easter, Isherwood begins writing
Seascape with Figures
, which is the first version of
All the Conspirators
and his fourth attempt at a novel.
1927
January 24, takes first job as private tutor.
1928
May 18, Isherwood's first novel,
All the Conspirators
, is published by Jonathan Cape; May 19, he visits Bremen; June 22, Auden introduces Isherwood to Stephen Spender; October, Isherwood begins as a medical student at King's College, London, and Auden moves to Berlin.
1929
March, Isherwood leaves medical school at the end of spring term; March 14â27, he visits Auden in Berlin where he meets John Layard and begins an affair with Berthold Szczesny; November 29, Isherwood moves to Berlin.
1930
December, Isherwood becomes tenant of Fräulein Meta Thurau at Nollendorfstrasse 17; during 1930, his translation of the
Intimate Journals of Charles Baudelaire
is published.
1931
By early 1931, Isherwood meets Jean Ross and soon afterwards he also meets Gerald Hamilton; in September, he begins teaching English.
1932
February 17,
The Memorial
is published by Isherwood's new publisher, the Hogarth Press; March 13, Isherwood meets Heinz Neddermeyer while living at Mohrin with Francis Turville-Petre; August 4âSeptember 30, Isherwood visits England and meets Gerald Heard and Chris Wood; September 14, he meets E. M. Forster; October, works as translator for a communist workers' organization, the IAH (Internationale Arbeiterhilfe), in Berlin.
1933
March 23, Hitler achieves dictatorial powers; April 5, Isherwood arrives in London with his belongings, preparing to leave Berlin for good; April 30, he returns to Berlin and on May 13, leaves for Prague with Heinz; they travel to Greece for the summer and return to England in September; October, Heinz returns to Berlin and Isherwood begins work as Berthold Viertel's collaborator on a film script for
The Little Friend
.
1934
January 5, Heinz is refused entry into England; January 20, Isherwood meets Heinz in Berlin and takes him to Amsterdam, returning alone to London; February 21, filming starts on
The Little Friend
; March 26, Isherwood joins Heinz in Amsterdam and they travel to Gran Canaria for the summer; June 8âAugust 12, Isherwood writes
Mr. Norris Changes Trains
; August 26,
The Little Friend
opens in London; September 6, Isherwood and Heinz set off for Copenhagen.
1935
January, Auden visits Copenhagen to work with Isherwood on
The Dog Beneath the Skin
; February 21,
Mr. Norris Changes Trains
is published by Hogarth; April, Isherwood moves Heinz to Brussels; May 9,
The Last of Mr. Norris
(U.S. edition of
Mr. Norris Changes Trains
) is published by William Morrow; May 13, Heinz receives a three-month permit for Holland and they settle in Amsterdam, lodging next to Klaus Mann; also in May,
The Dog Beneath the Skin, or Where Is Francis?
, written with Auden, is published by Faber and Faber; September 16, Isherwood and Heinz return to Brussels; December 21, they move from Antwerp to Sintra, Portugal, where Spender and Tony Hyndman join them.
1936
January 12,
The Dog Beneath the Skin
opens at the Westminster Theatre
in London; mid-January, Isherwood completes a draft of
Sally Bowles
; March 14, Spender and Hyndman leave Sintra for Spain; March 16âApril 17, Auden visits Sintra to work on
The Ascent of F6
; July 25, Heinz is ordered through the German consul in Lisbon to report for military service, but does not; September 11, Faber publishes Auden and Isherwood's play
The Ascent of F6
; Isherwood works on
Lions and Shadows
.
1937
February 26,
The Ascent of F6
premieres at the Mercury Theatre in London; March 17, Isherwood takes Heinz from Brussels to Paris; April 25, he joins Heinz in Luxembourg;
F6
successfully transfers to the Adelphi Little Theatre; May 12, Heinz is forced to leave Luxembourg and goes to Trier, in Germany, where he is arrested by the Gestapo; July 16âAugust 4, Isherwood works for Alexander Korda on the film script of a Carl Zuckmayer story; August 12âSeptember 17, he works with Auden in Dover on their new play,
On the Frontier
; September 15, Isherwood finishes
Lions and Shadows
; October, the Hogarth Press publishes
Sally Bowles
(later incorporated into
Goodbye to Berlin
).
1938
January 19, Isherwood and Auden leave for China to write a travel book,
Journey to a War
; during the spring “The Landauers” appears in John Lehmann's magazine,
New Writing
; March 17,
Lions and Shadows
is published by Hogarth Press; July 1â9, Isherwood and Auden, returning around the world from China, visit Manhattan where Isherwood meets Vernon Old; September 19, Isherwood begins writing
Journey to a War
, using his own and Auden's diary entries; September 26,
The Ascent of F6
is televised; October 1938, Faber publishes Auden and Isherwood's last play together,
On the Frontier
; November 14,
On the Frontier
opens at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge; mid-December, Isherwood works with Auden in Brussels on
Journey to a War
, completed December 17; Jacky Hewit accompanies Isherwood in Brussels through the New Year.
1939
January 19, Isherwood sails for America with Auden, arriving January 26 in New York where they settle; March,
Goodbye to Berlin
is published by the Hogarth Press and in the U.S. by Random House; the same month,
Journey to a War
is published by Faber and by Random House; early May, Isherwood applies for U.S. residency; May 6, he sets off for California with Vernon Old; June 9, Isherwood gets quota visa; July, Isherwood begins working with Berthold Viertel again and meets Swami Prabhavananda; early August, Isherwood begins instruction in meditation; October, Isherwood's new story, “I Am Waiting,” is published in
The New Yorker
; November, Isherwood gets his first Hollywood film job writing for Goldwyn Studios.
1940
January, Isherwood begins his first writing job at MGM, on
Rage in Heaven
for Gottfried Reinhardt; July 9, Uncle Henry Bradshaw Isherwood dies, Isherwood inherits the family estate and gives it to his brother, Richard; November 8, Swami Prabhavananda initiates Isherwood.
1941
By January 11, Isherwood finishes working on
Rage in Heaven
and then “polishes” other MGM scripts; February 17, he breaks with Vernon Old and, in mid-March, moves next door to Gerald Heard; early May, Isherwood finishes his first year's contract at MGM and leaves the studio; by mid-June,
Denny Fouts moves in with Isherwood; July 15, Kathleen Isherwood returns to live at Wyberslegh with Richard; August 22, Isherwood flies east to visit Auden and meets Caroline Norment at the Cooperative College Workshop, a refugee hostel in Haverford, Pennsylvania; October 11, he moves to Haverford to work in the hostel; also during 1941, Gerald Heard begins to build his monastic community, Trabuco.
1942
June 30, Isherwood has a medical exam at the draft board; July 6, the Haverford refugee hostel closes, and Isherwood returns to California; July 13, he receives his draft classification, 4âE, and applies to Los Prietos Camp to do civilian public service; by October 12, Isherwood begins working on a translation of the Bhagavad Gita with Swami Prabhavananda; October, another story, “Take It or Leave It,” is published in
The New Yorker;
November 30, Isherwood starts work at Paramount on Somerset Maugham's
The Hour Before Dawn;
December 31, Isherwood writes “The Wishing Tree” for the Vedanta Society magazine.