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Last month, the wonderful Sybille Bedford very sadly passed away. Here at Hamish Hamilton, we feel honoured to have known her, and to have published her gloriously enchanting, inspiring and sensual final book, Quicksands. In this piece, written just before Quicksands was published, Christopher Sinclair-Stevenson, Managing Director of Hamish Hamilton from 1974 to 1989, shares a few of his favourite memories from his time as Sybille's editor.
I first came to know Sybille Bedford when I published Jigsaw. Like so many of her books, it was autobiographical; and, like all of them, it was witty, and wise, and wonderfully written. We got on immediately. We invariably met for lunch (luncheon to her) at Hilaire in the Old Brompton Road (a restaurant now sadly gone) and, if her memory is to be believed, kicked off with a Bloody Mary or a glass of Krug champagne; I doubt the latter as my expenses wouldn't have gone that far.
I had read many of her books before Jigsaw: A Legacy, so much admired by Evelyn Waugh; her superb two-volume biography of Aldous Huxley; A Visit to Don Otavio, one of the best travel books of the twentieth century; A Compass Error; her books about the Nuremberg Trials and the curious case of Dr John Bodkin Adams... And, later, she allowed me to gather together some of her occasional pieces, about Italy, France, food, wine, travel here and there, under the title As It Was.
Sybille was awarded the OBE in 1981 and was made a Companion of Literature in 1994. She was indefatigable in her support of English PEN, that notoriously tricky organisation. But, above all, she was and still is a writer, and a writer of supreme quality. When she was ninety (she was born on 16 March, 1911) she asked me to interview her in the Voice Box at the Royal Festival Hall. It was both a tremendous honour and a considerable ordeal. Such occasions always produce one member of the audience hell-bent on asking inappropriate questions. So it proved. He had to be deflected until I could bring her back to thoughts about the Huxleys or Venice or her favourite wines. The evening ended well. Sybille probably knows more about wine, how it should be decanted and drunk, how long it should be allowed to rest after it has been delivered, than anyone else I have ever met. She is tremendously generous in sharing both wine and knowledge.
And now, almost miraculously, we have another book from her pen, a real autobiography. Or is it? It hardly matters.
Obituaries of Sybille Bedford can be found at the following links:
Shusha Guppy in the Independent
The Times
The Telegraph
Peter Vansittart in the Guardian
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