Christopher Sykes (writer): Difference between revisions

{{RefimproveMore citations needed|date=September 2014}}

'''Christopher Hugh Sykes''' {{postnominals|country=GBR|FRSL}} (17 November 1907 – 8 December 1986) was an English authorwriter. Born into the well-off [[Northern England|northern English]] landowning [[Sykes family of Sledmere]], he was the second son of the diplomat [[Mark Sykes|Sir Mark Sykes]] (1879–1919), and his wife, Edith (née Gorst). His sister was [[Angela Sykes]], the sculptor. His politician uncle, also [[Christopher Sykes (politician)|Christopher Sykes]], was, for a time, a close friend of [[Edward VII]].<ref name="records">[http://records.ancestry.com/christopher_hugh_sykes_records.ashx?pid=28400766 Profile], records.ancestry.com. Retrieved 4 September 2014.</ref>

Though Sykes contemplated making politics his career, he thought that his stammer and also his artistic and imaginative disposition would tell against his success in parliamentary life. At the [[School of Oriental and African Studies|School of Oriental Studies]] in London, he devoted himself to Persian studies in 1933 before travelling in Central Asia during 1933–34 with [[Robert Byron]], who later wrote ''[[The Road to Oxiana]]'' recounting their long expedition in what was then an almost unexplored country. In the book, Byron states that Sykes was given an order to leave Persia, but that after negotiations had been carried out, he was able to depart freely from the country, via Afghanistan, in Byron's company.<ref name="oxiana">{{cite book|last=Byron|first=Robert|title=The Road to Oxiana|year=1982|publisher=Oxford University Press|isbn=9780195030679|page=[https://archive.org/details/roadtooxiana00byro_0/page/220 220]|title-link=The Road to Oxiana}}</ref>

After returning to England, Sykes and Byron wrote a novel together under the name of Richard Waughburton, ''Innocence and Design'', published in 1935. A little later, Sykes and [[Cyril Connolly]] planned a book with the title of ''The Little Voice''. In common with other projects of Connolly's, the book never got beyond the planning stages. Sykes published in 1936 a biography of the German Persianist [[Wilhelm WassmusWassmuss]]; he did not, during later years, include this volume in his list of his publications. A memoir of Byron, killed at sea in 1941, was included in Sykes' best-selling book, ''Four Studies in Loyalty''.<ref>Four Studies in Loyalty by Christopher Sykes. Publisher: William Sloane, 1948. Kirkus review: [https://www.kirkusreviews.com/book-reviews/christopher-sykes-2/four-studies-in-loyalty/]</ref>

Sykes had an eventful war. Having held, like his famous father, a [[Territorial Army (United Kingdom)|Territorial Army]] commission in [[The Green Howards]] in 1927–30, he was commissioned in 1939 as a reserve officer in the regiment's newly formed 7th Battalion. In June 1940, Sykes joined [[Special Operations 1 - Propaganda|SO1]] (later [[Special Operations Executive]]), where he was personal assistant to Colonel [[Cudbert Thornhill]].

During October 1941, Sykes was sent out to Tehran as Deputy Director of Special Propaganda under diplomatic cover (Second Secretary at the British Legation) in the aftermath of the [[Anglo-Soviet invasion of Iran]], where he remained until November 1942, when he was transferred to Cairo. Out of a job because his department had been wound up, Sykes found time to write a light novel, ''High Minded Murder'' (1944), something of a ''roman à clef'', set in wartime Cairo where Graham Greene's sister Elizabeth was living (Sykes repeatedly mentions Greene in his biography of Waugh). Meanwhile, after failing to find any position as an intelligence officer in the Middle East, Sykes returned to the UK in May 1943, volunteered for the [[Special Air Service]] (SAS), and was posted to the Commando Training Depot at [[Achnacarry Castle]], Invernesshire on 1 July 1943.

Sykes will be especially remembered for his 1975 [[memoir]], the biography of his friend [[Evelyn Waugh]]. While both men had attended [[Oxford University|Oxford]], but a few years remote from each other, Sykes and Waugh met only after the success of ''[[Vile Bodies]]'', 1930. He introduced Waugh, as a matter of course, to [[Lady Diana Cooper]]. Waugh would create one of his great personalities drawn from her characteristics and ways, [[Mrs. Stitch|Julia Stitch]], in [[Scoop (novel)|Scoop]], 1938. Sykes praised ''[[Brideshead Revisited|Brideshead]]'', Waugh's Catholic epic; the two were both Catholics, but with the notable difference — mentioned by Waugh's son [[Auberon Waugh|Auberon]] when reviewing Sykes's book in the NovemberOctober 1975 issue of ''Books and Bookmen''<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Waugh |first1=Auberon |title=[A. Waugh review of C. Sykes, Evelyn Waugh] |journal=Books and Bookmen |date=1975 |issue=October |pages=7–9}}</ref> – that whereas Waugh converted to Roman Catholicism in his twenties, Sykes was a cradle Catholic. Sykes nonetheless censured some of Waugh's writing, and admitted to a dislike of the character of Julia Flyte, noting that nobody had yet identified a model for her in contemporary society. Also Sykes makes some interesting comparisons between scenes in Waugh's books and those of [[William Makepeace Thackeray|Thackeray]]: for instance, the fox-hunting scene in ''A Handful of Dust'' is compared to that in ''Barry Lyndon.''

Sykes is also remembered to a lesser extent, for his history of the [[Mandatory Palestine|British Mandate of Palestine]], ''Crossroads to Israel'' (1965). HeOf alsohis wrote severalhalf-dozen novels, none of which attained great popularity or fame.

In general Sykes's was better suited to non-fiction. Other biographies by him included a biographylife of [[Orde Wingate]] (published 1959), which drew attention to Wingate as the possible basis for Waugh's character Brigadier Ritchie-Hook in ''The Sword of Honour'' trilogy. Sometimes Wingate was referred to as "[[Thomas Edward Lawrence|Lawrence]] of Judea" (a phrase that Wingate deplored).

Two othersubsequent Sykes biographies which achieved substantial renown dealt with, respectively, [[Nancy Astor, Viscountess Astor|Lady Astor]] and [[Adam von Trott zu Solz]]. Lady Astor, born in Virginia, was one of the first women to sit in the [[House of Commons of the United Kingdom]]; while Trott zu Solz met a tragic and early death, judicially murdered by the Nazis for having taken part in the failed [[20 July plot|1944 plot]] to assassinate Hitler. {{citation needed|date=September 2014}}

After 1945 Sykes worked for many years in [[BBC Radio]], where he helped to get Waugh's broadcast ontribute to [[P.G. Wodehouse]] (who had been captured in Le Touquet by the Germans) on the air, against considerable opposition from Waugh's enemies. Frequently Sykes wrote for several British and American periodicals, including ''[[The New Republic]]'', ''[[The Spectator]]'', ''Books and Bookmen'', ''[[The Observer]]'' and the short-lived ''English Review Magazine''. He was invested as a Fellow of the [[Royal Society of Literature]]. {{citation needed|date=September 2014}}

He married Camilla Georgiana, daughter of Sir [[Thomas Wentworth Russell]] (great-grandson of the 6th [[John Russell, 6th Duke of Bedford|6th Duke of Bedford]])<ref>[http://www.thepeerage.com/p4663.htm#i46629 Profile], thepeerage.com. Retrieved 29 June 2016.</ref> on 25 October 1936.<ref name="records"/> Their son, Mark Richard Sykes (born 9 June 1937), by his second marriage, is father to six children including New York City based fashion writer and novelist [[Plum Sykes]]. Writer and photographer, [[Christopher Simon Sykes,]] is a nephew. {{citation needed|date=September 2014}} Writer and journalist Tom Sykes is a grandson.<ref>Tom Sykes, [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/08/25/this-is-my-half-of-the-castle-the-eccentric-living-arrangements-of-aristocrats.html "This Is My Half of the Castle: The Eccentric Living Arrangements of Aristocrats," Daily Beast, 25 August 2016.]</ref>

* ''[[Noblesse Oblige (book)|Noblesse Oblige]]'' (1956), [[Noblesse_Oblige_Noblesse Oblige (book)#%22What_U"What U-Future?%22_by_Christopher_Sykes" by Christopher Sykes|contribution]]

[[Category:20th-century British biographers]]