He also wrote criticism and essays, works on the theatre and biography. He was a
Roman Catholic convert, and biographer of
Hilaire Belloc and
Eric Gill. In the case of Gill, a personal friend, he suppressed material about Gill's sexual interests, which would come out only in the 1989 biography by
Fiona MacCarthy.
He married the Welsh actress
Evelyn Bowen, with whom he had a son; they separated in 1939. Evelyn later married the celebrated Irish writer
Frank O'Connor, with whom she had three children.
Works
Mutinous Wind (1932)
The Lost Hero (1934) novel
Nurse Cavell (1934) play, role of the German spy in
C.S. Forester's play about the life of
Edith Cavell
Legend of Helena Vaughan (1936) novel
The Angel in the Mist (1936)
St. Thomas of Canterbury (1938)
Acting: its idea and tradition (1939)
The Unbroken Heart (1939)
Since 1939 - Drama, the Novel, Poetry, Prose Literature (1949) with
John Hayward,
Henry Reed,
Stephen Spender – earlier as pamphlet Drama Since 1939 (1947)
George Eliot (1954) "The English Novelists series"