Nigel Nicolson

Nigel Nicolson
Member of Parliament for Bournemouth East and Christchurch
In office 1952–1959
Preceded by	Brendan Bracken
Succeeded by	John Cordle
Personal details
Born	(1917-01-19)19 January 1917 183 Ebury Street, London
Died
Political party	Conservative
Spouse(s)	Philippa Tennyson-d'Eyncourt

Nigel Nicolson OBE (19 January 1917 – 23 September 2004) was an English writer, publisher and politician.

Biography

Nicolson was the son of writers Sir Harold Nicolson and Vita Sackville-West; he had a brother Ben, an art historian. The boys grew up in Kent, first near their mother's ancestral home at Knole and then at Sissinghurst Castle, where their parents created a famous garden. Nicolson was sent to board at Summer Fields, a prep school in Oxford; he then attended Eton College and Balliol College, Oxford. During World War II he served with the Grenadier Guards, later writing their official history.

Nicolson wrote many books and founded with George Weidenfeld the firm Weidenfeld and Nicolson, of which he was a director from 1948 to 1992. He also worked as a broadcaster and was a member of the Ancient Monuments Board. Although his father had been first a National Labour and then a Labour politician, Nigel Nicolson became active in the Conservative Party and contested Leicester North West in 1950 and Falmouth and Camborne in 1951, without success. He was elected Member of Parliament for Bournemouth East and Christchurch at a by-election in February 1952, when the previous MP, Brendan Bracken, was elevated to the House of Lords. Nicolson was re-elected in the seat in the general election of May 1955.

However, he was uncomfortable within the Tory party and voted with Labour to abolish hanging and abstained in a vote of confidence in the government over the Suez War. His constituency association called for him to resign and wrote to the Prime Minister briefing against their MP. A ballot of members was called. Unfortunately for Nicolson, a scandal relating to his publishing interests broke at the same time – the company's publication of Vladimir Nabokov's novel Lolita. Nicolson lost the members' vote and was forced to step down at the general election of October 1959.

Nicolson returned to writing, particularly on heritage and biography. He co-wrote a celebrated 1973 book on his parents, Portrait of a Marriage. It balanced a frank account of his bisexual parents' extramarital affairs (especially Vita Sackville-West's 'elopement' with Violet Trefusis) with their enduring love for each other; it caused an uproar when it was published. He edited his father's diaries and, with Joanne Trautmann, the letters of Virginia Woolf. Later he wrote the "Long Life" column for The Spectator, and a Time of My Life column for The Sunday Telegraph. His autobiography, Long Life, was published in 1997.

Marriage

In 1953 Nicolson married Philippa, the daughter of Sir Gervais Tennyson-d'Eyncourt, and they had two daughters, Rebecca, a publisher, Juliet, an historian, and a son, Adam, a writer. They divorced in 1970.

Ancestors

Family of Nigel Nicolson

16. Maj.-Gen. Sir William Nicolson, 9th Baronet, of Carnock               8. Adm. Sir Frederick Nicolson, 10th Baronet, of Carnock                       17. Mary Russell               4. Arthur Nicolson, 1st Baron Carnock                             18. James Loch               9. Mary Loch                       19. Ann Orr               2. The Hon. Sir Harold Nicolson                                   20. Cap. Gawin William Rowan-Hamilton               10. Cap. Archibald Rowan-Hamilton                       21. Catherine Cockburn               5. Mary Katherine Rowan-Hamilton                             22. Rev. George Caldwell               11. Catherine Anne Caldwell                       23. Harriet Abdy               1. Nigel Nicolson                                         24. George Sackville-West, 5th Earl De La Warr               12. The. Hon. William Edward Sackville-West                       25. Lady Elizabeth Sackville, 1st Baroness Buckhurst               6. Lionel Sackville-West, 3rd Baron Sackville                             26. George Dodwell               13. Georgina Dodwell                       27. Victoria Gethin               3. The Hon. Vita Sackville-West                                   28. George Sackville-West, 5th Earl De La Warr (= 24)               14. Lionel Sackville-West, 2nd Baron Sackville                       29. Lady Elizabeth Sackville, 1st Baroness Buckhurst (= 25)               7. Victoria Sackville-West                             30. Pedro Durán               15. Josefa Durán y Ortega                       31. Catalina Ortega

Bibliography

• The Grenadier Guards in the War of 1939–1945 (1949) with Patrick Forbes
• Lord of the Isles (1960) on Lord Leverhulme
• People and Parliament (1958)
• The United Nations: A Reply to Its Critics (1963)
• Sissinghurst Castle (1964)
• Great Houses of Britain (1965)
• Diaries & Letters of Harold Nicolson (1966–68) three volumes, editor
• Great Houses of The Western World (1968)
• Alex: The Life of Field Marshal Earl Alexander of Tunis (1973)
• Portrait of a Marriage (1973)
• Letters of Virginia Woolf (1975–1980) six volumes, editor
• The Himalayas (1975)
• Mary Curzon (1977)
• The National Trust Book of Great Houses in Britain (1978)
• Napoleon 1812 (1985)
• Lady Curzon's India: Letters of a Vicereine (1986)
• Two Roads to Dodge City (1986) with Adam Nicolson
• The Village in History (1988) with Graham Nicholson and Jane Fawcett
• Counties of Britain: A Tudor Atlas by John Speed (1989) with Alasdair Hawkyard
• The World of Jane Austen (1991)
• Vita And Harold : The Letters of Vita Sackville-West And Harold Nicolson (1992) editor
• A Long Life: Memoirs (1998)
• Kent (1999)
• Virginia Woolf, part of the Penguin Lives biography series (2000)
• Fanny Burney: The Mother of English Fiction (2002)
• The Queen and Us : The Second Elizabethan Age (2003)
• Vita Sackville-West : Selected Writings (2003) editor with Mary Ann Caws

See also

• List of Bloomsbury Group people

External links

• Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Nigel Nicolson
• A brief biography of Nigel Nicolson
• Appearance on Desert Island Discs 12 March 1995

Parliament of the United Kingdom
Preceded by Brendan Bracken	Member of Parliament for Bournemouth East & Christchurch 1952–1959	Succeeded by John Cordle