Christopher Isherwood Diaries Volume 1

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  About the Author

  Also by Christopher Isherwood

  Chronology

  Title Page

  Introduction

  The Emigration

  January 19, 1939–December 31, 1944

  The Postwar Years

  January 1, 1945–December 26, 1949

  April 11, 1948–April 13, 1956

  The Late Fifties

  April 14, 1956–May 25, 1958

  May 26, 1958–August 26, 1960

  Textual Note

  Glossary

  Acknowledgements

  Index

  Copyright

  About the Book

  In 1939 Christopher Isherwood and W. H. Auden emigrated together to the United States. In spare, luminous prose these diaries describe Isherwood’s search for a new life in California; his work as a screenwriter in Hollywood, his pacifism during World War II and his friendships with such gifted artists and intellectuals as Garbo, Chaplin, Thomas Mann, Charles Laughton, Gielgud, Olivier, Richard Burton and Aldous Huxley.

  Throughout this period, Isherwood continued to write novels and sustain his literary friendships – with E. M. Forster, Somerset Maugham, Tennessee Williams and others. He turned to his diaries several times a week to record jokes and gossip, observations about his adopted country, philosophy and mystical insights. His devotion to his diary was a way of accounting for himself; he used it as both a discipline and a release.

  About the Author

  Christopher Isherwood (1904–1986) was one of the most celebrated writers of his generation. He left Cambridge without graduating, briefly studied medicine and then turned to writing his first novels, All the Conspirators and The Memorial. Between 1929 and 1939 he lived mainly abroad in Europe, spending four years in Berlin and writing the novels Mr. Norris Changes Trains and Goodbye to Berlin on which the musical Cabaret was based. He wrote three plays with W. H. Auden and emigrated with him to America in 1939. Auden settled in New York and Isherwood went on to California where he became a successful screenwriter. He took U.S. citizenship in 1946, and wrote another five novels, including Prater Violet, Down There on a Visit and A Single Man. He also wrote a travel book about South America and a biography of the Indian mystic Ramakrishna. In the late 1960s and the 1970s he turned to autobiography – Kathleen and Frank, Christopher and His Kind, My Guru and His Disciple – and published October, one month of his diary with drawings by Don Bachardy.

  Katherine Bucknell is editor of Christopher Isherwood’s The Sixties: Diaries Volume Two: 1960–1969 and Lost Years: A Memoir 1945–1951, and of W. H. Auden’s Juvenilia: Poems 1922–1928. She is co-editor of Auden Studies and a founder of The W. H. Auden Society. She is also the author of three novels.

  www.katherinebucknell.com

  Also by Christopher Isherwood

  Novels

  All the Conspirators

  The Memorial

  Mr. Norris Changes Trains

  Goodbye to Berlin

  Prater Violet

  The World in the Evening

  Down There on a Visit

  A Single Man

  A Meeting by the River

  Autobiography and Diaries

  Lions and Shadows

  Kathleen and Frank

  Christopher and His Kind

  My Guru and His Disciple

  October (with Don Bachardy)

  The Sixties: Diaries Volume Two: 1960–1969

  Lost Years: A Memoir: 1945–1951

  Biography

  Ramakrishna and His Disciples

  Plays (with W. H. Auden)

  The Dog Beneath the Skin

  The Ascent of F6

  On the Frontier

  Travel

  Journey to a War (with W. H. Auden)

  The Condor and the Cows

  Collections

  Exhumations

  Where Joy Resides

  Chronology

  1904 August 26, Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood, first child of Frank Bradshaw Isherwood and Kathleen Bradshaw Isherwood (née Machell Smith), born at Wyberslegh Hall, High Lane, Cheshire, on the estate of his grandfather, John Bradshaw Isherwood, squire of nearby Marple Hall.

  1908 February 28, moves to Strensall near York following his father’s regiment; November 9, moves to Frimley near Aldershot following his father’s regiment.

  1909 Dictates a story, “The Adventures of Mummy and Daddy.”

  1910 His father begins teaching him to read and write.

  1911 Begins attending local school; October 1, brother Richard Graham Bradshaw Isherwood born; November 27, father leaves to join his regiment in Limerick, Ireland.

  1912 January, moves with his mother and baby brother to Limerick; September 28, sees first film.

  1914 May 1, arrives at his preparatory school, St. Edmund’s, Hindhead, Surrey as a nine-year-old boarder; August 4, Britain declares war on Germany and Isherwood’s father receives mobilization orders; August 14, Frank Isherwood’s regiment leaves Limerick for England; August 24, Isherwood and his mother and brother move back to Marple; September 8, the regiment leaves for France; Isherwood returns to St. Edmund’s; November 28–29, his father visits him at school while on leave.

  1915 February 28, Isherwood’s father visits him at school for the last time; March, Isherwood gets measles followed by pneumonia, leaves school to convalesce; May 8 or 9, Frank Isherwood evidently wounded at Ypres, probably killed; June 24, Kathleen Isherwood receives Frank’s identity disk, apparently confirming his death; September 17, Isherwood returns to school, having missed more than a term.

  1917 January 1, Isherwood begins keeping a diary; he records walking with W. H. Auden at school; March 18, ill with German measles, remains at school during start of holidays with Auden and a few other boys.

  1918 January 1, Isherwood begins a new diary, lasting until September; December 19, leaves St. Edmund’s having won numerous prizes.

  1919 January 17, arrives at Repton, his public school, near Derby; October 10, Richard Isherwood starts school at Berkhamstead; November 30, Isherwood confirmed as Anglican.

  1921 Winter, joins G. B. Smith’s history form at Repton where he meets Edward Upward; November, Kathleen Isherwood moves with her mother to 36 St. Mary Abbot’s Terrace in West Kensington, London; December, Isherwood sits scholarship exam at Cambridge with Upward and wins £40 exhibition to Corpus Christi College; Richard Isherwood leaves his school.

  1922 January 18, Richard Isherwood starts school again in London, at Norland Place; June 23, Isherwood wins English Essay Prize, History Prize, and Literature Prize at Repton speech day; July, wins form prize; summer, writes two chapters of a school novel; September, begins last term at Repton; December, wins £80 scholarship to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge.

  1923 Lives at home in London; writes three chapters of a school novel; April 10–July 3, studies French in Rouen; begins writing a novel called Lions and Shadows; October 10, goes up to Corpus Christi, renews close friendship with Edward Upward.

  1924 Around this time, Isherwood and Upward start keeping diaries and begin to invent Mortmere; Isherwood writes various shorts stories; summer, achieves 2:1 in Mays exams.

  1925 January, finishes his novel, now titled Christopher Garland; June 1, Cambridge Tripos exams begin; June 11, Isherwood returns to London; June 18, summoned to Cambridge to explain his joke Tripos answers and withdraws; August, takes job as secretary to André Mangeot’s string quartet; December, meets W. H. Auden and renews prep school friendship.

  1926 January, begins writing another novel, The Summer at the House; Easter, begins
Seascape with Figures (first version of All the Conspirators), completed by autumn.

  1927 January 4, moves out of his mother’s house at St. Mary Abbot’s Terrace into a friend’s empty lodgings in Redcliffe Road; January 24, takes job as private tutor; autumn, returns to his mother’s house; decides to go to medical school.

  1928 Tutoring jobs; May 18, Isherwood’s first novel, All the Conspirators, published by Jonathan Cape; May 19, sails for Bremen where he is met by Basil Fry; May 30, returns to England; June 2–9, helps his mother move to 19 Pembroke Gardens; June 22, Auden introduces Isherwood to Stephen Spender; October, Isherwood begins as medical student at King’s College, London and Auden moves to Berlin; December 13, Isherwood completes first draft of The Memorial; Auden visits from Berlin over Christmas and tells Isherwood about his life there and about Homer Lane’s theories.

  1929 March, Isherwood leaves medical school at end of spring term; March 14–27, visits Auden in Berlin, meets John Layard, begins affair with Berthold Szczesny; mid-June to end of June, Isherwood returns to Germany and pursues Szczesny to Amsterdam; end of June, Isherwood returns to London, works as tutor during summer; October, Wall Street crash; November 29, Isherwood moves to Berlin; takes room at In Den Zelten 10, next door to Magnus Hirschfeld’s Institute for Sexual Science, and works on third draft of The Memorial.

  1930 February 19, Isherwood returns to London, staying mostly at home; May 8, returns to Berlin; May 11, meets Walter Wolff and by October 4 moves in with the Wolffs at Simeonstrasse 4, Hallesches Tor; November, Isherwood moves to Admiralstrasse 38, Kottsbusser Tor; December, moves to Nollendorfstrasse 17, as tenant of Fräulein Meta Thurau; also during 1930, Isherwood’s translation of the Intimate Journals of Charles Baudelaire published.

  1931 By early 1931, Isherwood meets Jean Ross and she moves into Frl. Thurau’s; that winter, he also meets Gerald Hamilton; March 10–21, Isherwood visits London; summer, works on early version of Lions and Shadows; plans The Lost; May 19, goes with Auden, Spender, and Walter Wolff to Insel Reugen, Sellin; July 10, returns to Berlin, W. 62, Kleiststrasse 9; September, begins teaching English.

  1932 February 17, The Memorial published by Isherwood’s new publisher, the Hogarth Press; March 13, Isherwood meets Heinz Neddermeyer while living at Mohrin with Francis Turville-Petre; July elections, Nazis achieve majority in the Reichstag; August 4–September 30, Isherwood visits England, meets Gerald Heard and Chris Wood; September 14, meets E. M. Forster; September 30, returns to Berlin; October, works as translator for Willi Münzenberger’s communist workers’ organization, the IAH (Internationale Arbeiterhilfe).

  1933 January 30, Hitler becomes Chancellor of Germany; February 27, fire destroys the Berlin Reichstag and the Nazis suspend civil liberties and freedom of the press; March 5, Nazis win 288 seats in the General Election, more than twice as much as the next largest party; March 7, Dollfuss suspends the Austrian parliament; March 23, Hitler achieves dictatorial powers; April 5, Isherwood arrives in London with his belongings, preparing to leave Berlin for good; April 30, returns to Berlin where he learns the police have been asking about him; May 2, trade unions suppressed in Germany; May 13, Isherwood leaves for Prague with Heinz, they travel via Vienna to Budapest, Belgrade and Athens, and arrive May 22 on Francis Turville-Petre’s Greek island, St. Nicholas; September 6, they leave for Marseille and Paris; September 30, they go on to England; October, Heinz returns to Berlin and Isherwood begins work as Berthold Viertel’s collaborator on film script for The Little Friend.

  1934 January 5, Heinz attempts to enter England and is turned back at immigration; January 20, Isherwood meets Heinz in Berlin and takes him to Amsterdam, returning alone to London; February 1, Dollfuss dissolves Austrian political parties (except his own Fatherland Front); February 12, General Strike in Austria; by February 16, socialist unrest is forcibly put down by Dollfuss; February 21, filming starts on The Little Friend; March 26, Isherwood joins Heinz in Amsterdam; April 4, they leave Amsterdam for Gran Canaria; Isherwood works on The Lost; June 8, he starts Mr. Norris Changes Trains; Isherwood and Heinz spend the summer touring and mountain climbing; June 11, Geneva disarmament conference ends in failure; July 25, Dollfuss assassinated; July 30, Kurt Schuschnigg becomes Austrian chancellor; August 12, Isherwood finishes Mr. Norris Changes Trains; August 26, The Little Friend opens in London; September 6, Isherwood and Heinz leave for Copenhagen via Gibraltar and Amsterdam; October 1, they settle at Classensgade 65; October 21, start of Mao’s Long March in China.

  1935 January, Auden visits Copenhagen to work with Isherwood on The Dog Beneath the Skin; February 21, Mr. Norris Changes Trains published by Hogarth; March 1, restoration of Saar land to Germany following plebiscite; Hitler introduces conscription; April, Isherwood visits Brussels with Heinz, whom he leaves there, travelling to Paris alone and then London; May 9, The Last of Mr. Norris (U.S. edition of Mr. Norris Changes Trains) published by William Morrow; May 12, Isherwood agrees to review for The Listener and returns to Heinz in Brussels; May 13, Heinz receives three-month permit for Holland and they move to Amsterdam, lodging next to Klaus Mann; also in May, The Dog Beneath the Skin, or Where Is Francis?, written with Auden, is published by Faber and Faber; September 16, Isherwood and Heinz return to Brussels; September 19, Isherwood signs new contract with Methuen, works on “A Berlin Diary (Autumn 1930)”; October 2, Italy invades Ethiopia; mid-November, Isherwood works on “The Nowaks”; late November, he visits England; December 10, Isherwood and Heinz leave Brussels for Antwerp; December 21, they move to Sintra, Portugal, where Spender and Tony Hyndman join them; Isherwood begins work on a novel, Paul Is Alone.

  1936 January 12, The Dog Beneath the Skin opens at the Westminster Theatre in London; mid-January, Isherwood completes draft of “Sally Bowles”; January 20, death of King George V, who is succeeded by Edward VIII; March 7, Germany occupies the Rhineland; March 14, Spender and Hyndman leave Sintra for Spain; March 16–April 17, Auden visits Sintra to work on The Ascent of F6; May 29, Isherwood abandons Paul Is Alone, returns to The Lost; July 17, Civil War breaks out in Spain; July 25, Heinz is ordered through the German consul in Lisbon to report for military service, but does not; August 21, Isherwood arrives back in London; October 1, Franco declared chief of state by Nationalists; September 11, Faber publishes Auden and Isherwood’s play The Ascent of F6; Isherwood works on Lions and Shadows; November 1, Mussolini declares Rome–Berlin axis; Germany and Japan sign anti-Comintern pact; December 11, Edward VIII abdicates and is succeeded by his brother, George VI.

  1937 January 12–13, Isherwood meets Auden, headed for Spanish Civil War, in Paris; February 3–March 9, Isherwood attends rehearsals for F6 in London; February 26, F6 premieres at The Mercury Theatre; March 17, Isherwood joins Heinz in Brussels and takes him to Paris, then spends April in London where he is ill; April 25, he joins Heinz in Luxembourg; F6 successfully transfers to the Adelphi Little Theatre; May 12, Heinz is forced to leave Luxembourg and goes to Trier, where he is arrested the next day by the Gestapo; Isherwood returns to London; July 7, Japanese invade northeast China; they reach Beijing before the end of the month; July 16–August 4, Isherwood works for Alexander Korda on film script of a Carl Zuckmayer story; August 12–September 17, he works with Auden in Dover on their new play, On the Frontier; September 15, finishes Lions and Shadows; October, Hogarth Press publishes Sally Bowles (later incorporated into Goodbye to Berlin); November 6, Italy joins German–Japanese anti-Comintern pact; November 11, Japanese capture Shanghai and continue to advance.

  1938 January 19, Isherwood and Auden leave for China to write a travel book: Journey to a War; during the spring “The Landauers” appears in John Lehmann’s New Writing; March 12, German troops enter Austria and on March 13 Hitler proclaims the Anschluss (union) of Austria with Germany; March 17, Lions and Shadows published by Hogarth Press; April 24, Sudeten Germans, on Hitler’s orders, demand independence from Czechoslovakia; July 1–9, Isherwood and Auden, returning around the world from China, visit Manhattan where Isherwood meets
Vernon Old; July 17, Isherwood arrives back in London; August 12, Germany mobilizes armed forces; September 7, Sudeten Germans sever relations with Czechoslovak government; September 15, Hitler tells Chamberlain he will annex the Sudetenland; September 18, British and French pressure Czechs to accept Hitler’s terms, Czechs refuse, then give in on September 21; September 19, Isherwood begins writing Journey to a War, using his own and Auden’s diary entries; September 22–24, Chamberlain visits Hitler again, and returns urging Britain, France and Czechoslovakia to allow Hitler to occupy Sudetenland; Czech government resigns; September 26, The Ascent of F6 televised; Britain and France begin to mobilize; September 29–30, at the height of the crisis, Chamberlain, Daladier, Hitler and Mussolini meet in Munich and partition Czechoslovakia, ceding Sudetenland to Germany; October 1–10, Germany occupies Sudetenland; October 1938, Faber publishes Auden and Isherwood’s last play together, On the Frontier; November 14, On the Frontier opens at the Arts Theatre in Cambridge; mid-December, Isherwood works with Auden in Brussels on Journey to a War, completed December 17; Jacky Hewit with Isherwood in Brussels.

  1939 January 8, Isherwood returns to London; January 19, Isherwood sails for America with Auden, arriving January 26 in New York where they settle; March 6–16, Hitler divides remainder of Czechoslovakia with Hungary; Poland refuses to cede Danzig and Baltic routes; March 28, Spanish Republicans surrender in Madrid, ending the Spanish Civil War; March, Goodbye to Berlin published by Hogarth Press and in the U.S. by Random House; Journey to a War published by Faber and by Random House; April 7, Italy invades Albania and Spain joins anti-Comintern pact; early May, Isherwood applies for U.S. residency; May 6, he sets off for California with Vernon Old; they live at the Rose Garden apartments at 6406 Franklin Avenue, Hollywood; June 9, Isherwood gets quota visa; June 18, Isherwood and Vernon Old move to 7136 Sycamore Trail; during the summer, Isherwood writes “I Am Waiting” and a review of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath; July, he begins working with Berthold Viertel again and meets Swami Prabhavananda; early August, Isherwood begins instruction in meditation; August 23, Russia and Germany sign non-aggression pact; September 1, Germany attacks Poland; September 3, England declares war on Germany and Germany sinks Athenia off Ireland; September 7–10, Germany overruns western Poland; mid-September, Isherwood and Vernon Old settle in two rooms at 303 South Amalfi Drive; September 17, USSR attacks Poland from the east; September 28, Poland surrenders and is partitioned; October, “I Am Waiting” published in The New Yorker; November, Isherwood gets first film job writing for Samuel Goldwyn’s independent studio, Goldwyn Studios; November 30, Russia invades Finland.