Christopher Isherwood · A Personal Memoir

John Lehmann joined Leonard and Virginia Woolf's Hogarth Press in 1931 as trainee manager and shortly thereafter became the publisher of Christopher Isherwood’s second novel, The Memorial. In this personal memoir, Lehmann has used his own diaries and characteristic letters from Isherwood to recount the friendship that continued for more than fifty years. The two collaborated on a literary magazine, New Writing, which included excerpts from Isherwood’s work in progress, and their correspondence over the years touched on a fascinating variety of people and creative activity in the arts. Lehmann sheds new light on the events of the thirties: Isherwood’s moves around Europe with his friend Heinz, who was trying to escape induction into the German army, and the further development of Isherwood's writing plans. Particularly illuminating is the account of the genesis of Isherwood’s stories about Berlin life, which were published as The Last of Mr. Norris and Goodbye to Berlin. From the latter came Sally Bowles, originally an extended short story, which was made into the play I Am a Camera', a film; a musical, Cabaret', and finally a film of the musical. As the shadow of war lengthened over Europe in 1939, Isherwood decided to leave for the United States with his close friend W. H. Auden. He was already being talked about as the hope of English fiction in his generation. The correspondence with Lehmann continued once Isherwood settled in California; it shows his feelings about becoming a pacifist, his initiation into the meaning and aspirations of Vedanta, and his early adventures as a scriptwriter in Hollywood. Lehmann was his confidant in many of the most important decisions of his life and gives a unique insight into the states of mind and way of life of one of the most celebrated writers of this century.