A Curious Friendship: The Story of a Bluestocking and a Bright Young Thing

by Anna Thomasson

The winter of 1924: Edith Olivier, alone at the age of 51, thought her life had come to an end. For Rex Whistler, a 19-year-old art student, life was just beginning. They were to start an intimate and unlikely friendship that would transform their lives. Gradually Edith's world opened up and she became a writer. Her home became a sanctuary for Whistler and other brilliant and beautiful younger men—Siegfried Sassoon, Stephen Tennant, William Walton, John Betjeman, the Sitwells and Cecil Beaton—for whom she was "all the muses." The story is set against the backdrop of a period that spanned the madcap parties of the 1920s, the sophistication of the 1930s and the drama and austerity of World War II. With an extraordinary cast, from the Royal Family to Tallulah Bankhead, Anna Thomasson's account brings to life, for the first time, the curious, unlikely and fascinating friendship of a bluestocking and a bright young thing.

Genres: Biography, History, Nonfiction, LGBT

536 pages, Paperback

First published March 26, 2015

About the author

Anna Thomasson studied for an M Phil in Biography at the University of Buckingham and her thesis was shortlisted for the Daily Mail Biographers' Club Prize. She lives in London.

Reviews

[Nicola Pierce · Rating 5 out of 5]

My only quibble with this book was that I wanted a lot more photographs and so very much more of Rex Whistler's artwork between its covers. I can't remember what first attracted me to picking it off the shelf, I had never heard of Rex Whistler or Edith Olivier. Also - may God help me - on quickly scanning the blurb I somehow believed that Rex Whistler was a girl.

This is a lovely, warm read about a 51 year old woman who believes that her life had slammed closed with the death of her beloved sister. Grief-stricken and lonely, she is correct to assume that the joyful, safe future that she had anticipated sharing with her sibling had instantly disappeared. And then ... within a few short months ... her life, wardrobe and hair is completely and utterly transformed thanks to her courage and new friends, mostly a fantastic mixture of teenage boys who are about to launch themselves on the world, but in particular with young talented artist, Rex Whistler, who battles with his flagging confidence and sexuality.

Her life quite simply explodes with joy, travel, love, literary success and sincere companionship. Her social life includes the likes of the Sitwells, Cecil Beaton and Siegfried Sassoon. It is as if the first fifty years of quiet and sheltered existence was purposely storing up the energy required for the various paths that opened up to her. I learned a lot about friendship and commitment from Edith Olivier - that it is a gift to be nurtured and cherished daily, and can last a lifetime.

[Tania · Rating 3 out of 5]

The subject matter is interesting, but I found the writing a little dry and it was too bogged down with detail. Worth reading, but I found it a bit of a slog.

[Katie Faulkner · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought this book after hearing Anna Thomasson talk about Rex Whistler and Edith Olivier on Woman's Hour and it was definitely a great decision. Thomasson brings out Edith's and Rex's complex personalities and compassionately exposes their tangled personal lives. I thought this was a very touching depiction of a real-life friendship between a young man and an older woman, as well as a poignant insight into what it was like for unmarried women living in Britain between the World Wars. Other figures you encounter in the book such as Stephen Tennant and Cecil Beaton bring touches of flamboyance and frivolity. I would thoroughly recommend this beautiful book to anyone interested in British art and literature in the twentieth century.

[Shilpa · Rating 2 out of 5]

I loved the premise of the book but the writing is insufferably boring. I think this book needed a better editor. Remove all the irrelevant, boring, pedantic detail from this book, rewrite it to give some actual depth to the main characters (whom we suspect were rather interesting, unusual people), rather than a staid, droning recitation of what they wore and ate for dinner and it could be a wonderful book a third of its current size. As it stands now, I barely managed to finish it, and I'm truly baffled by all the glowing reviews. Interesting subject, terrible writing.

[Hunted Snark · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you want to know what Edith Olivier had for breakfast and where she ate it, this is your book.

That’s unkind.

It’s very thoroughly researched and there is a huge amount of interesting material here.

So much. 460 pages of it!

But as a reader, I am easily defeated by detail. I need analysis, astringency, crunch.
You can’t see a person clearly when the bits about where they went for tea is presented in exactly the same glowy, breathless terms—and given much the same weight—as the commissioning of major works of art. I’m not sure whether it’s the author’s style, or because the whole thing is refracted through Olivier’s diaries and letters.

And, although Olivier seems to have attracted the undying affection of many of the arts-end of the Bright Young persons, I’m not certain that her view of the scene is actually all that interesting.
You see, I bought it back in 2016 because I knew a little—but only a little—about Rex Whistler. I knew that he painted trompe l’oeil walls for various aristos, and designed book jackets (I had one on a Beverley Nichols book about gardening). But more importantly, I knew that he was in those famous photos of Cecil Beaton and Stephen Tennant larking about in knee-breeches and face powder. I mean … that’s enough to capture anyone’s curiosity, isn’t it?

But that aspect—that most of Whistler’s male friends were as gay as—didn’t really seem to capture Thomasson’s interest. Not … really. Which I suppose is partly because Olivier didn’t really believe in gays. Apparently she didn’t even believe that Violet Trefusis (whom she knew) was a lesbian.
Consequently, Thomasson seems not especially interested in considering what everyone’s deal may or may not have been. And I don’t mean I wanted her to go through the laundry baskets, I just wanted to see some curiosity about queer lives.

From what I can tell, Olivier was quite possibly asexual or ace adjacent:

To Edith, who had lived her life without it, sex was not significant. (page 91)

But … Whistler … ?

Well, he scrubs up lovely as a romantically inclined, lovelorn straight, doesn’t he? So that’s what we get. Chapter after chapter revolving around the various unpleasant and unattainable women he fell hopelessly and fruitlessly (therefore safely?) in love with. And the extremely attainable one: none less than Tallulah Bankhead, who—apparently—taught him how to do the sex thing. When he was about 29.

Of this we learn many small things, but I was caught by:

She was easy and magnetic company and an uncomplicated crash-course in sex. Stephen described Tallulah as a ‘man-eating vampire’, which is perhaps why she appealed to the instinctively submissive Rex.(p. 278)

So … yeah … add that to his hanging around mostly with gay men and being besties with a much older possibly asexual woman, and you totally get a picture of a red-blooded heterosexual.
But that’s what we’re sold.

Compulsory heterosexuality, do you see?

FFS

I really wish that biographers who are tackling subjects who were clearly on the fringes of the gay world, would either consult on that aspect, or do course. I should write them a book.
Something like:

‘The Sundry Subtle Varieties of Queerness: Laid out with Examples and Venn Diagrams for the Education and Enlightenment of Cis-Straight Biographers’.

Because I’m sick of asexuality not even entering anyone’s imagination let alone text, and bisexuality and bi-romanticism just being swept under the carpet unless it’s really really obvious. And let’s not even start on gender non-conformity …

I think this is the closest bit of analysis we get:

Though Cecil [Beaton] and particularly Stephen [Tennant] were at the heart of the beau monde Rex always remained on its fringes – and in Edith’s eyes he was anyway above suspicion.
…
In the way he dressed, fancy-dress parties and leopard-skin togas aside, Rex was markedly and increasingly conservative in comparison to his dandyish friends. Stephen might sprinkle his hair with gold dust, rouge his cheeks, smear Vaseline on his eyelids, paint his lips, don earrings and mist himself with scents from Worth and Molyneux, but for the most part (despite his brief flirtation with plus fours) Rex dressed ‘unostentatiously’ in corduroy trousers or well-cut suits.

He was conscious of the significance of how he looked. According to his brother, ‘He liked rich and unusual colour-effects in shirts and ties and pullovers; and soft dark hats worn with a rakish brim’. However, he always sought to present a more conventionally masculine demeanour. It was not just for Edith’s benefit, although her good opinion mattered to him. Stephen was rich and aristocratic. Rex was neither, and though his friend was happy to court controversy Rex did not want to be tarnished, or have his career thwarted, by accusations of immorality.’

What? Just … what? The contradictions in those paragraphs are dizzying!

He was 'conventionally masculine' in his dress … except when he wasn’t, and his brother said he really liked wearing arty stuff. But look, he didn’t wear makeup and stuff like his gender-queer (maybe? gender non-conforming anyhow) best friend did… so he was 'conservative'.

Could you at least stop and have a think about this, sweetie? Just a bit?

And let's not start on the tacit value judgements about gender non-conformity.

Anyhow, this was the bit that made me chuck it, finally.

It had been my second go at reading it in an orderly way.
I tried it back in 2016 (okay, you got me: yes, it’s a ten year old book and maybe I’m expecting 2020s gendery-bendery politics from it).

But anyhow, last time I couldn’t scrape together enough interest in Edith Oliver’s family background or the confusion over houses and noble families, to get out of the first chapter. So this time, I was armed with more peripheral reading about Whistler, and I had a more determined go.
But, no. I was flicking and dipping in and out in no time.

But I’ll certainly keep it as a reference work.
It’s full of information on the arty set, the haute monde, the beau monde, the demi monde, even if the whole thing feels weirdly indirect, refracted through Olivier’s extremely one-sided diaries, which are the primary source, of course.

And ... after all ... I’m still not quite sure what this marvellous friendship was based on.
Conversation, I assume.

Weird book.
Won prizes.

I assume a good bio is really hard to write.

[Sophie (RedheadReading) · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a really fascinating lens through which to view Rex Whistler and, by extension, the Bright Young Things in general. Both Edith and Rex are such interesting figures and the insight they had into each other made for a very intimate feeling. Anna Thomasson paints such a vivid picture and I think it's testament to the quality of her writing that I got quite emotional as events played out towards the end!

[Noits · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good, informative but far too long and too focused on the minutiae of who dined with whom and who was in love with whom! It got dull quite quickly.
I like to see some observational wit in a biography, and an injection of authorial vigour and opinion. This just failed to keep things moving and made the compelling characters feel dull and uninteresting.

Not a favourite, though detailed and thorough so worth having on hand when investigating /researching any of the key protagonists.

[Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

Middle aged Edith Olivier makes friends with "bright young thing" Rex Whistler and becomes a member of his circle. Nice depictions of the various persons and very nice illustrations.

[Miag123 · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ugh maybe it's me? This was so boooooring! And long! And boring!

[Kitty · Rating 4 out of 5]

A wonderful dual biography of Edith Olivier and Rex Whistler whose 'curious friendship' inspired both of them to great creativity, as a writer and artist/illustrator respectively. Their early lives are briefly described, but the core of the book tells of how they first met in 1925 when Edith was in her 50s and alone following the death of her sister, and Rex was a 19 year old art prodigy who had just left the Slade. Their enduring relationship - partly mother/son and partly platonic romance - lasted until Rex's untimely death on active service in 1944 (Edith died soon after in 1948). It is a well-deserved tribute to both as Edith's books are almost unknown now ('The Love Child' is the best known) and Whistler, although famous for his Tate restaurant murals, has not been written about much either (besides his brother's biography of him) - perhaps because much of his major work was for private murals or commercial illustration, neither of which lend themselves to exhibition. The archive of letters between the two of them which the author draws upon, and between their circle of close friends - including Stephen Tennant, Siegfried Sassoon and Cecil Beaton - paint a vivid picture of their characters, their careers and their love affairs (the boys, not Edith's), as well as the importance of Wiltshire, and particularly Wilton where Edith lived throughout her life, as a retreat and an inspiration. The Wilton set may not have gained the cachet of the Bloomsbury Group, but they are no less fascinating and this biography gives a vivid insight into their creative flowering between the wars.

[Sarah Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

In an effort to make myself smarter (haha) I have been trying to read some things outside my comfort zone and I thought this fit the bill. I follow Tiffany Reisz through Goodreads and she had mentioned this book and rated it and I thought it sounded interesting. This is the biography (somewhat) of Rex Whistler the British artist and his friendship with much older Edith Olivier in that period between WW1 and WW2. He was considered a bright young thing and had success early on in his career. Rex and Edith's relationship was purely platonic since Rex was either a confused bisexual, asexual or a repressed homosexual. To me it sounded like he was in love with the idea of romantic love as opposed to the physical act. Also she was more of a sister/mother/mentor figure to him. Their friendship abruptly ended when he was killed in his first day in France in 1944. At first I found this a little dry but warmed up to it and shed a little tear when Rex died.

[poppy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Poor Rex😭
The writing was very detailed so took me ages to read and it was the first autobiography I’ve read, but it was really good - I loved the characters by the end! Lots of namedropping of people I didn’t recognise tho. Oh yeah I loved all the pictures

[Alex Ankarr · Rating 2 out of 5]

ehhhh not good. got a slight laugh out of the epistolary extract with someone described as 'an exquisite goat', though. ffs though, why the upper clarses gotta write such godawful pretentious flowery letters though, makes me wanna spew.

[Kitschyanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

A biographical window onto the past and a bygone age as seen through the medium of the friendship between the painter Rex Whistler and Edith Olivier.

[Karen-Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoy connections between books and biographies are great for that. I just finished Stephen Tennant's biography with all its name dropping and then read an autobiography of Edith Olivier and wanting to read more about this woman did a search and came up with this biography of Edith Olivier and her relationship with Rex Whistler and Stephen Tennant and Siegfried Sassoon and Cecil Beaton and Diana Cooper and Duff etc. etc. etc. I read all these biographies and am absolutely delighted to find a new one that brings them all back into focus. A remarkable lady and a remarkable friendship well written and vivid. Brought that entire era to life.

[Christine Parker · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easily readable biography... And they are not all ..which leads on to thirst for more about some of the figures and their life and times.
There is certainly more than one curious friendship going on here. There is so much to like and dislike about the 'cast', they are such a frustrating and frustrated bunch.
Would make a brilliant book club read.

[Sue Robinson · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant wonderful book. Very well written and totally absorbing.