Nest of Tigers

A Nest of Tigers: The Sitwells in Their Times by John Lehmann, 275 pages

"We are as cosy as a nest of tigers on the Ganges," was how Dame Edith Sitwell described her relationship with her brothers, Sir Osbert and Sacheverell, to her friend John Lehmann.  This provided the title for Lehmann's admiring portrait of the Sitwell family, their literary works in all their variety, their roles in the English Modernist avant-garde, and their relations with their contemporaries both famous and obscure.

Although the book concentrates as much on their works as on their lives, Lehmann writes more as a friend rather than as a critic, and his obvious sympathy with the Sitwells is perfectly mirrored by his antipathy towards their detractors.  The result is not, perhaps, as fine as a more objective evaluation might have been.  It is, however, undoubtedly more charming.