Arthur Calder-Marshall (19 August 1908 – 17 April 1992) was an English novelist, essayist, critic,
memoirist, and biographer.
Life and career
Calder-Marshall was born in El Misti, Woodcote Road, Wallington,
Surrey, the son of Alice (Poole) and Arthur Grotjan Marshall (later Calder-Marshall; 1875 –1958),[1][2] a civil engineer.[3] The elder Arthur was grandson of the sculptor
William Calder Marshall (1813–1894). William Calder Marshall's father William Marshall (1780–1859),
D.L. (Edinburgh), a goldsmith (including to the King in the early nineteenth century) and jeweller, had married Annie, daughter of merchant William Calder,
Lord Provost of Edinburgh 1810–11, by his wife Agnes, a daughter of landed gentleman Hugh Dalrymple. The Marshall family were Episcopalian goldsmiths from Perthshire; the Calder family were merchants.[4]
In his youth, Calder-Marshall lived with his family in Steyning, where he made friends with
Victor Neuberg, the poet and associate of
Aleister Crowley. His 1951 memoir The Magic of My Youth includes extensive anecdotes re: Neuberg (nicknamed "Vickybird"), Crowley himself, and other Crowley associates such as
Raoul Loveday and
Betty May.
In 1937, Calder-Marshall wrote scripts for
MGM although none appears to have been filmed.[8]
Calder-Marshall's fiction and non-fiction covered a wide range of subjects. He himself remarked, "I have never written two books on the same subject or with the same object."[9]
With his wife, documentary screenplay-writer[11] Ara (born Violet Nancy Sales),[12] he was the father of the actress
Anna Calder-Marshall and the grandfather of the actor
Tom Burke. He and his wife visited the English novelist
Malcolm Lowry in Mexico and attested to his chronic alcoholism-fuelled creative processes in an interview they gave which was included in the 1976 documentary Volcano: An Inquiry into the Life and Death of Malcolm Lowry.
James Mason purchased the film rights to Occasion of Glory, intending to make this project his directorial debut.[14] Mason hired
Christopher Isherwood to write the script.[15]
Bibliography
Biography
"The Enthusiast; An Enquiry into the Life Beliefs and Character of the Rev. Joseph Leycester Lyne alias Fr. Ignatius, O.S.B., Abbot of Elm Hill, Norwich and Llanthony Wales" (1962, Faber and Faber; Facsimile reprint 2000, Llanerch Publishers, Felinfach)
^Seekers of Truth: The Scottish Founders of Modern Public Accountancy, T. A. Lee, JAI Press, 2006, pp. 246-7
^Pritchard, J.W.H. Appreciation: Mevagissey autobiography, quietly received – Arthur Calder-Marshall. The Guardian (London, England). (2 May 1992): News: p28.
^Andy Croft, A Weapon in the Struggle: the cultural history of the Communist Party in Britain
Pluto Press, 1998.
ISBN0745312047, (p. 26).
^Andy Croft, Comrade Heart: A Life of Randall Swingler. Manchester University Press, 2003.
ISBN0719063345 (p.71).
^Motion Picture Herald, 1937, Volume 128, announces that MGM has signed four writers including Calder-Marshall.
^Arthur Calder-Marshall; Obituary. Source: The Times (London, England). (22 April 1992): News: p13.
^Palmer, Martyn. Rider on the storm; The Times (London, England), 15 July 2006. p.8
^British Film and Television Yearbook vol. 4, Peter Noble, British and American Film Press, 1952, p. 100