Nichols, Beverley, 1898-1983

English essayist, novelist and playwright. During World War II Nichols spent a year in India as a correspondent of the British syndicate of the Allied newspapers.

From the description of Verdict on India : [London], [1944]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 84554522

From the description of Verdict on India : [London], [1944]. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 702146653

Novelist, playwright, journalist, composer, and political activist John Beverley Nichols was born September 9, 1898, in Bristol, England. Nichols was a popular writer, best known for his sentimental and witty "musings on gardening, country life, and cats."

After an unsuccessful first term at Balliol College, Oxford, in 1917, Nichols joined the Army Labour Corps, a noncombat division. Transferred to Cambridge in 1918 to train officer cadets, he was made secretary to vice-chancellor of Cambridge University Dr. Arthur Everett Shipley and joined Shipley and the British Education Commission on a tour of United States colleges and universities. The Commission was charged with extending cooperation between English and American educational institutions. During this trip, Nichols finished what became his first novel, Prelude (1920), which drew much from his schooldays at Marlborough College.

Returning to Oxford in 1919, Nichols assumed the editorial responsibilities of the Oxford student newspaper, Isis, while simultaneously launching and editing his own periodical, Oxford Outlook . Nichols served as the president of the Oxford Union, a debating society, for a short time. While a student, Nichols emerged as a somewhat controversial figure for his outspokenness in the press on topics such as politics, women's rights, and his commentary on the post-War rebellion and cynicism of young British men and women.

Greatly affected by the war, Nichols became an outspoken pacifist and advocate for disarmament, giving speeches at rallies and appropriating the slogan "peace at any price." Themes reflecting this ideology are prominent in several of Nichols's literary pieces. His 1931 play production Avalanche explores the theme of individuality, collective identity, and nationalism. In 1933, he published Cry Havoc, which investigates the ways in which the connection between government and industry perpetuates armament in developed nations and denounces modern warfare, stating, "chivalry was a flower too fine to blossom on the poisoned fields of Flanders." Nichols's outspokenness was not limited to the war and its aftermath; as an openly gay man, Nichols became an advocate for sexual tolerance, a theme often incorporated into his work, particularly during the early 1930s, when he met and began living with English actor Cyril Butcher, who remained his lifelong partner.

Nichols's creative output is as varied generically as it is topically. Novels, juvenile fiction, short stories, plays, poetry, travel books, and musical revues all comprise Nichols's repertoire. Nichols served as a reporter and columnist for both London and American newspapers and magazines, including the London Daily News, the London Sunday Times, the London Sunday Chronicle, and Good Housekeeping . Nichols developed a moderately successful career in theater in the 1920s, composing music for revues and writing his own plays; in 1933 a collection of three plays under the title Failures was published.

Perhaps Nichols’s most widely read work was his "garden literature," inspired by his country homes: Ellerdale Close in Hampstead, Thatch Cottage in Glatton, Sudbrook Cottage, and Merry Hall in Surrey. The style of his garden books is marked by long digressions incorporating memories and musings on politics. Nichols also published a popular fictionalized version of his own gardening experiences at Glatton titled Down the Garden Path (1932).

A prolific writer of creative non-fiction, Nichols published on a variety of topics in addition to politics and gardening, including religion, social satire, cats, parapsychology, and his own life. Nichols irreverently penned a memoir at twenty-five, titled Twenty-Five (1926). One of Nichols's most scandalous publications, Father Figure (1972), recounts his three attempts to murder his abusive alcoholic father. Another controversial piece, not based on his own life, was A Case of Human Bondage (1966), a volume that excoriates English author Somerset Maugham for the treatment of his wife, noted English interior decorator Syrie Maugham.

Beverley Nichols died in 1983 in Glatton, England.

"(John) Beverley Nichols." Contemporary Authors Online Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2010. (reproduced in Biography Resource Center). http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC (accessed October 2010). Connon, Bryan. "Nichols, (John) Beverley (1898-1983)." Rev. Clare L. Taylor. In Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, edited by H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison. Oxford: OUP, 2004. Online ed., edited by Lawrence Goldman. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/31497 (accessed October 14, 2010). "The Official Beverley Nichols Website." Timber Press, Inc. http://www.beverleynichols.com/index.php (accessed October 14, 2010). Connon, Bryan. Beverley Nichols: A Life. Portland, Oregon: Timber Press, 2000. Additional biographical information derived from the collection.

From the guide to the Beverley Nichols papers, 1698, 1911-1991, undated, 1911-1991, (University of Delaware Library - Special Collections)