manners which he could use when he wished. Also, he continued to create a most peculiar relationship with Alec Beesley. Declaring to Christopher, in private, that Alec was one of the handsomest men he’d ever set eyes on and that he’d bet Alec wasn’t that hard to get, he began flirting quite openly but inoffensively with Alec in Dodie’s presence. Neither Alec nor Dodie could object to this because Speed was such an avowed faggot that his behavior seemed no more than natural. But it amused Christopher to realize that Alec was not only slightly embarrassed by it but also coyly pleased. Alec even tried to learn Speed’s language––that is to say, he tried to get Speed to explain to him what “camp” is. But Speed’s teasingly misleading definitions left him nowhere. Alec ended by deciding that camp is any kind of irresponsible unmotivated behavior. Therefore, one morning when Speed and Christopher had been invited to lunch, they found that Alec had prepared for their arrival by throwing all the garden chairs into the pool, where they were floating. “It’s a camp!” Alec explained, obviously pleased with himself, like a proud pupil expecting praise.
286
Lost Years
As for Gus Field, he took the news well, too. Which was more
admirable, since he got very little gratitude from Christopher or anybody else for doing so. If he was invited to the Beesleys’, it was only once or twice. Speed dropped him. Christopher only saw him occasionally. He was treated as a bore and an outsider––and that, from Christopher’s point of view, was what he was.
Chronology
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.
290
Chronology
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 14–27, 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 4–September 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 8–August 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 Chronology
291
in London; mid-January, Isherwood completes a draft of Sally Bowles; March 14, Spender and Hyndman leave Sintra for Spain; March 16–April 17, Auden visits Sintra to work on The Ascent of F 6; 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 F 6; Isherwood works on Lions and Shadows.
1937 February 26, The Ascent of F 6 premieres at the Mercury Theatre in London; March 17, Isherwood takes Heinz from Brussels to Paris; April 25, he joins Heinz in Luxembourg; F 6 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 16–August 4, Isherwood works for Alexander Korda on the film script of a Carl Zuckmayer story; August 12–September 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 1–9, 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 F 6 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.