Desmond MacCarthy

Sir Charles Otto Desmond MacCarthy ( born May 20, 1877 in Plymouth, Devon, † June 7, 1952 in Cambridge ) was a British journalist, literary and theater critic. He was a member of the FRSL and the Bloomsbury Group.

Life and work

MacCarthy was educated at Eton College and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he was one of the elite secret society Cambridge Apostles. There he met Lytton Strachey, Bertrand Russell and GE Moore know. His friends also belonged to Logan Pearsall Smith. In 1903 he began working as a journalist. In 1906 he married Mary ( 1882-1953 ), known as Molly, the daughter of Francis Warre Warre - Cornish ( 1839-1916 ), who was also connected as a writer with the Bloomsbury Group. Between 1906 and 1910 he wrote for The New Quarterly. In 1910 he helped as secretary of the organization planned by Roger Fry exhibition Manet and the Post- Impressionists in London's Grafton Galleries and wrote the catalog text.

In World War MacCarthy served as an ambulance driver in France and was temporarily working in the Secret British Naval Intelligence Department. From 1913 he wrote for the New Statesman theater reviews. Between 1920 and 1927 he worked as a literary editor; among other things, he wrote a weekly column published, which he signed with " Affable Hawk". In 1927 he started for the BBC in the emerging medium of radio books to review. In 1928 he became editor of Life and Letters and literary critic of the Sunday Times. In 1951 he was knighted.

MacCarthy and his wife Mary had two sons and a daughter, Rachel. She married the literary historian Lord David Cecil; Her son was the actor Jonathan Cecil. Mary and Desmond MacCarthy are buried in the cemetery " Parish of the Ascension Burial Ground " in Cambridge.

Writings

  • Portraits (1931 )
  • Drama (1940 )
  • Shaw ( 1951)
  • Memories ( 1953)

Secondary literature

  • Noel Annan: The Intellectual Aristocracy, in JH Plumb: Studies in Social History: A Tribute to GM Trevelyan Longmans, Green, London 1955, p 257
  • Todd Avery: Close Affectionate Friends; Desmond and Molly MacCarthy and the Bloomsbury Group, The Lilly Library, Indiana University Press, 1999
  • Todd Avery: Desmond and Molly MacCarthy: Bloom Berries. Cecil Woolf, London 2010
  • David Cecil (ed.): Desmond MacCarthy, the Man and His Writings (1984 )
Royal Society of Literature Mary MacCarthy Naval Intelligence Division Royal Court Theatre WorldCat Duncan Grant National Portrait Gallery (London) Integrated Authority File
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