My Father and Myself

by Ackerley, J. R.; Auden, W. H.

• ISBN13: 9780940322127
• ISBN10: 0940322129
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 1999-09-30
• Publisher: NYRB Classics

Summary

When his father died, J. R. Ackerley was shocked to discover that he had led a secret life. And after Ackerley himself died, he left a surprise of his ownthis coolly considered, unsparingly honest account of his quest to find out the whole truth about the man who had always eluded him in life. But Ackerley's pursuit of his father is also an exploration of the self, makingMy Father and Myselfa pioneering record, at once sexually explicit and emotionally charged, of life as a gay man. This witty, sorrowful, and beautiful book is a classic of twentieth-century memoir.

Author Biography

J. R. Ackerley (1896-1967) was for many years the literary editor of the BBC magazine The Listener. His works include three memoirs, Hindoo Holiday, My Dog Tulip, and My Father and Myself, and a novel, We Think the World of You (all available as New York Review Books).

W.H. Auden (1907—1973) was born in North Yorkshire, England, the son of a doctor. He studied at Oxford and published his first book, Poems, in 1930, immediately establishing himself as one of the outstanding voices of his generation. Auden emigrated to New York in 1939, where he became a US citizen and converted to Anglicanism. He wrote essays, critical studies, plays, and opera librettos for such composers as Benjamin Britten, Igor Stravinsky, and Hans Werner Henze, as well as the poems for which he is most famous.

Table of Contents

My father and myself	xxiv
My father, c. 1890	57	(1)
My father as a guardsman	58	(1)
New Brighton: Stockley, my father, de Gallatin, Dudley Sykes	59	(1)
My father and Miss Burckhardt in New Brighton in 1889	60	(1)
My mother in The Merry Wives of Windsor	61	(1)
My mother in the 'Twenties	62	(1)
Myself as a preparatory schoolboy: "Girlie"	63	(1)
Myself as a subaltern	64