Background
Dame Edith Sitwell (1887-1964) was an English poet, prose author and renowned eccentric.
Sitwell was born into a prominent literary family and participated in literary endeavors
with her brothers, Sir Osbert Sitwell and Sir Sacheverell Sitwell. Her first book, The
Mother and Other Poems, was published in 1915, and Sitwell steadily published poetry from
this point until her death; her volume of Collected Poems was published in 1930 and her last
book of poems, The Outcasts, appeared in 1962. Although chiefly known as a poet, Sitwell
also composed works in prose, many of which were nonfiction works and biographies. In 1953
Sitwell completed a film script based on her book on the life of Elizabeth I, A fanfare for
Elizabeth (1946). A book of Sitwell's letters, Selected Letters, was published in 1970, six
years after her death.
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