A TALK ON RONALD FIRBANK : A TELLER OF FAIRY TALES FOR GROWN UP PEOPLE

 

“The Firbank Beneath My Foot”
A Tribute to Ronnie Firbank
In an illustrated  talk by  William  Cross, FSA Scot
 
Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank 1886-1926

  “A teller of fairy tales for grown up people”

Ronnie Firbank was born in London in 1886, but his passport recorded an address of St Julians, Newport, Monmouthshire.  His paternal grandfather Joseph Firbank ( 1819-86) made his pile from the railways and lived at St Julians House, Newport where he revelled as  High Sheriff of Monmouthshire.  Ronnie’s  father ( Sir)  Joseph Thomas Firbank, (1850-1910) was old Joseph’s eldest son, and sometime an MP. Ronald’s mother, Jane Harriette Garrett, was of Irish descent. 

Ronnie was educated at Uppingham School, Rutland, and tutored privately, notably by Rollo St Clair Talboys (1877-1953).  He learned several languages, travelled abroad and later attended Trinity College, Cambridge from 1906-9, where he was a contemporary of the war poet Rupert Brooke and Oscar Wilde’s son, Vyvyan Holland. The family homes were at Newport, Chistlehurst and London. 

There were two brothers, but Ronnie’s closest kin was a younger sister, Heather.  Both  of them shared a bizzaire shyness, strange foibles and eccentricities.

Known by his family as “Arthur” ( Artie) he  was a sickly child, spoilt by his mother, he converted to Roman Catholic in 1907. 

In adulthood  Firbank  “cut a  figure as a rich, shy and utterly fastidious dandy”. He frequented the Café Royal and the Eiffel Tower (two fashionable London restaurants). He was thought of as a very clever young man with a flair for art  and history. But he was an insecure loner who curled up in a chair, in his own thoughts.  He was tolerated and indulged by his artistic and literary contemporaries including Evan Morgan, Augustus John, Nancy Cunard, E M Foster, Wyndham Lewis, Alvaro Guevara and Aldous Huxley. Augustus John, Wyndham Lewis and Alvaro Guevara all painted Firbank’s portrait. Every visual image of Ronald Firbank differs in an extraordinary  way.  Augustus John said it was impossible to do his portrait as he wanted to “ look over my shoulder”.  

Ronnie’s  books were published at his own expense from 1915-1926. They are  “long sustained and complex epigrams..”. This is a list of his main titles & dates published:  1905: Odette  d’ Antrevernes ; 1915: Vainglory; 1916 : Inclinations; 1917 : Caprice; 1919: Valmouth;  1920 :The Princess Zoubaroff; 1921:  Santal; 1923: The Flower Beneath the Foot;  1924: Prancing Nigger (aka Sorrow in Sunlight);  1926: Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli. 

His “ Letters to His Mother”, Dearest Baba,  are also in print.

Some Opinions on Firbank

“ I always think of Ronald Firbank as an unhappy man who luckily for him, had the power of expressing himself through his books”.   Vyvyan Holland.
 
“ He was like a dipping strand of willow with a nerve of steel, and that “ something” floating bending but unbreakable in him is, of course, the integrity of the good artist.”  Nancy Cunard
 
Ifan Kyrle Fletcher had Newport links with Firbank. He  wrote an early Memoir of him . “ While others thought of vice and virtue, he ( Firbank) was concerned about vulgarity and elegance.” 
 
 “ …..the reclusive dandy-novelist Ronald Firbank, a man so consumed by shyness that he once spent a dinner party hiding under the table.”   D J Taylor ( 2009)
 

Ronnie travelled extensively to write, with much of his work compiled in France, North Africa, Italy ( in particular Rome), Haiti, USA and London,  his publisher was Grant Richards.

Firbank  is buried in Campo Verano, Rome’s largest Catholic Cemetery. A white marble ground slab in Section 38  records :

 “RIP : PRAY FOR THE SOUL OF  ARTHUR ANNESLEY RONALD  FIRBANK WHO ENTERED INTO REST ON 21^ST MAY 1926   FAR FROM HIS COUNTRY”

 AND THEREBY HANGS A TALE REVEALED IN THE TALK    

Ronnie's Grave in Campo Verano, Rome, by Monty Dart 

                      Blue Plaque for Ronnie 33, Curzon Street Mayfair, London

For more information, please contact William Cross, FSA Scot 

      Thanks to Monty & the late Tom Dart, Tony Friend & Ian Burge, Alan Smith, Digory Firbank & Ronnie Firbank

 

Ronnie Tried To Join The Swiss Guards 

                

                  Will cleaning up Ronnie's Grave in Rome's Campo Verano 

Email For  WILL CROSS

 williecross@aol.com