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Last edited by VioletFrost
June 2, 2022 | History

Peter Quennell

Sir Peter Courtney Quennell CBE (9 March 1905 – 27 October 1993) was an English biographer, literary historian, editor, essayist, poet, and critic. He wrote extensively on social history.

Born in Bickley, Kent, the son of architect (and author/illustrator) C. H. B. Quennell and Marjorie Quennell (historian/author/illustrator), he was educated at Berkhamsted Grammar School and at Balliol College, Oxford. While still at school some of his poems were selected by Richard Hughes for the anthology Public School Verse, which brought him to the attention of writers such as Edith Sitwell.

In 1922 he published his first book, Masques and Poems. This was followed by many other volumes, particularly his Four Portraits of 1945 (studies of Boswell, Gibbon, Sterne, and Wilkes), books on London and works on Baudelaire, Byron, Pope, Ruskin , Hogarth, Shakespeare, Proust and Samuel Johnson.

He first practised journalism in London. In 1930 he taught at the University of Tokyo. In 1944–51, he was editor of The Cornhill Magazine and from 1951 to 1979 founder-editor of History Today.

Quennell published two volumes of autobiography, The Marble Foot and Wanton Chase.

He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), and was knighted in the 1992 New Year Honours.

He married five times, and had two children, a daughter (Sarah) from his third marriage and a son (Alexander) from his fifth. He died in London.

--adapted from Wikipedia

British writer (1905–1993)

Born 9 March 1905
Died 27 October 1993

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  • Cover of: A history of English literature.

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  • Cover of: Inscription on a fountainhead

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  • Cover of: letter to Mrs Virginia Woolf.

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  • Cover of: Masques & poems
    First published in 1922 3 editions

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  • Cover of: The pursuit of happiness
    First published in 1988 3 editions

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  • Cover of: Victorian panorama: a survey of life & fashion from contemporary photographs

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  • Cover of: The marble foot: an autobiography, 1905-1938

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  • Cover of: Samuel Johnson; his friends and enemies.

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  • Cover of: The past we share: an illustrated history of the British and American peoples

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  • Cover of: Byron in Italy
    First published in 1951 2 editions

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  • Cover of: L' Angleterre romantique: écrivains et peintres, 1717-1851

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  • Cover of: Shakespeare: the poet and his background

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  • Cover of: Four portraits: studies of the eighteenth century.

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  • Cover of: Customs and characters: contemporary portraits

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  • Cover of: The phoenix-kind: a novel
    First published in 1931 2 editions

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  • Cover of: The sign of the fish.
    Cover of edition signoffish0000quen First published in 1960 2 editions

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  • Cover of: A superficial journey through Tokyo and Peking

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  • Cover of: The wanton chase: an autobiography from 1939

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  • Cover of: The prodigal rake: memoirs of William Hickey.

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  • Cover of: Vladimir Nabokov, his life, his work, his world: a tribute

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British writer (1905–1993)

Born 9 March 1905
Died 27 October 1993

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June 2, 2022 Edited by VioletFrost Edited without comment.
March 28, 2022 Edited by AgentSapphire merge authors
March 28, 2022 Edited by AgentSapphire merge authors
March 24, 2022 Edited by VioletFrost Edited without comment.
April 1, 2008 Created by an anonymous user initial import