Beverley Nichols

John Beverley Nichols (9 September 1898 – 15 September 1983) was an author, playwright, journalist, composer, and public speaker.

Career

Between his first book, the novel Prelude, published in 1920, and his last, a book of poetry, Twilight, published in 1982, Nichols wrote more than 60 books and plays. Besides novels, mysteries, short stories, essays and children's books, he wrote a number of non-fiction books on travel, politics, religion, cats, parapsychology, and autobiography. He wrote for a number of magazines and newspapers throughout his life, the longest being weekly columns for the London Sunday Chronicle newspaper (1932–1943) and Woman's Own magazine (1946–1967).

Nichols is now best remembered for his gardening books, the first of which, Down the Garden Path, was illustrated – as were its two sequels – by Rex Whistler. This best-seller – which has had 32 editions and has been in print almost continuously since first published in 1932 – was the first of his trilogy about Allways, his Tudor thatched cottage in Glatton, Cambridgeshire. The books are written in a poetic manner, with a rich, creative language, evoking emotional and sensual responses, but also with a lot of humour and even a hint of irony. They were parodied by W. C. Sellar and R. J. Yeatman in Garden Rubbish (1936), where the Nichols figure was called "Knatchbull Twee".

A book about Nichols' city garden near Hampstead Heath in London, Green Grows the City, published in 1939, was also very successful. That book introduced Arthur R. Gaskin, who was Nichols's manservant from 1924 until Gaskin's death in 1966. Gaskin was a popular character, who also appeared in the succeeding gardening books.

A later trilogy written between 1951 and 1956 documents Nichols's travails renovating Merry Hall (Meadowstream), a Georgian manor house in Agates Lane, Ashtead, Surrey, where Nichols lived from 1946 to 1956. These books often feature his gifted but laconic gardener "Oldfield". Nichols's final trilogy is referred to as "The Sudbrook Trilogy" (1963–1968) and concerns his late 18th-century attached cottage at Ham, near Richmond, Surrey.

Nichols wrote on a wide range of topics, always looking for "the next big thing." As examples, he ghostwrote Dame Nellie Melba's 1925 "autobiography" Memories and Melodies (he was at the time her personal secretary – his 1933 book Evensong was believed based on aspects of her life). In 1966 he wrote A Case of Human Bondage about the marriage and divorce of writer William Somerset Maugham and his interior-decorator wife, Syrie, which was highly critical of Maugham. Father Figure, which appeared in 1972 and in which he described how he had tried to murder his alcoholic and abusive father, caused a great uproar and several people asked for his prosecution. His book about spiritualism was not well received, which disappointed him.

His main interest apart from the writing of his books was gardening, especially garden design and winter flowers. Among his huge acquaintance in all walks of life were many famous gardeners including Constance Spry and Lord Aberconway, who was President of the Royal Horticultural Society and owner of the Bodnant Garden in North Wales.

Nichols made one appearance on film – in 1931 he appeared in Glamour, directed by Seymour Hicks and Harry Hughes, playing the small part of the Hon. Richard Wells. The film is now lost.

In 1934, Nichols wrote a best-selling book advocating pacifism, Cry Havoc! By 1938, he had abandoned his pacifism; he later supported the British campaign in World War Two.

Personal life

He went to school at Marlborough College, and went to Balliol College, Oxford, and was President of the Oxford Union and editor of Isis. Nichols was homosexual.

Nichols died in 1983. He is buried in Glatton, England.

Selected bibliography

Gardening, homes and restoration

• Down the Garden Path (1932) ISBN 978-0-88192-710-8
• A Thatched Roof (1933) ISBN 978-0-88192-728-3
• A Village in a Valley (1934) ISBN 978-0-88192-729-0
• How Does Your Garden Grow? (1935)
• Green Grows the City (1939) ISBN 978-0-88192-779-5
• Merry Hall (1951) ISBN 978-0-88192-804-4
• Laughter on the Stairs (1953) ISBN 978-0-88192-460-2
• Sunlight on the Lawn (1956) ISBN 978-0-88192-467-1
• Garden Open Today (1963) ISBN 978-0-88192-533-3
• Forty Favourite Flowers (1964)
• The Art of Flower Arrangement (1967)
• Garden Open Tomorrow (1968) ISBN 978-0-88192-552-4

Novels

• Prelude (1920) (reprinted in 2007 by Kessinger Publishing, ISBN 0-548-75213-3)
• Patchwork (1921)
• Self (1922)
• Crazy Pavements (1927)
• Evensong (1932), filmed in 1934
• Revue (1939)

Mysteries

• No Man's Street (1954)
• The Moonflower (1955) (a.k.a. The Moonflower Murder)
• Death to Slow Music (1956)
• The Rich Die Hard (1957)
• Murder by Request (1960)

Cats

• Beverley Nichols' Cats A.B.C. (1960)
• Beverley Nichols' Cats X.Y.Z. (1961)

Religion

• The Fool Hath Said (1936)
• A Pilgrim's Progress (1952)

Plays

• The Stag – produced 1929, published 1933
• Avalanche – produced 1931, published 1933
• When the Crash Comes – produced & published 1933
• Evensong – produced 1932, published 1933
• Mesmer – produced 1935, published 1937
• Shadow of the Vine – published 1949, produced 1954

Autobiographies

• Twenty-Five (1926)
• All I Could Never Be (1949)
• The Sweet and Twenties (1958)
• Father Figure (1972)
• Down the Kitchen Sink (1974)
• The Unforgiving Minute (1978)

Political

• Cry Havoc! (1933)
• News of England (1938)
• Verdict on India (1944)
• Uncle Samsom (1950)

Biography

• A Case of Human Bondage (1966)

Children's Books

• The Tree that Sat Down (1945)
• The Stream that Stood Still (1948)
• The Mountain of Magic (1950)
• The Wickedest Witch in the World (1971)

Travel

• No Place Like Home (1936)
• The Sun in My Eyes (1969)

In Collaboration

• Yours Sincerely (1947). Collaboration with Monica Dickens.

External links

• Works by Beverley Nichols at Project Gutenberg