Compton Mackenzie Biography

Sir Compton Mackenzie, OBE (1883"1972) was a prolific writer of fiction, biography, histories, and memoir, as well as a cultural commentator, raconteur, and lifelong Scottish nationalist. He was one of the co-founders in 1928 of the Scottish National Party along with Hugh MacDiarmid, RB Cunninghame Graham and John MacCormick.

Background

Edward Montague Compton Mackenzie was born in West Hartlepool, England, into a theatrical family of Mackenzies, but many of whose members used Compton as their stage surname, starting with his grandfather Henry Compton, a well-known Shakespearean actor of the Victorian era. His father, Edward Compton, was an actor and theatre company manager; his sister, Fay Compton, starred in many of J. M. Barrie's plays, including Peter Pan. He was educated at St Paul's School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where he graduated with a degree in modern history.

Writing

Sir Compton Mackenzie is perhaps best known for two comedies set in Scotland, the Hebridean Whisky Galore (1947) and the Highland The Monarch of the Glen (1941), sources of a successful film and a television series respectively. He published almost a hundred books on different subjects, including ten volumes of autobiography, My Life and Times (1963"1971). He also wrote history (on Marathon and Salamis), biography (Mr Roosevelt, 1943, a biography of FDR), literary criticism, satires, apologia (Sublime Tobacco 1957), children's stories, poetry, and so on. Of his fiction, The Four Winds of Love is sometimes considered to be his magnum opus. It is described by Dr. John MacInnes (formerly of the School of Scottish Studies) as "one of the greatest works of English literature produced in the twentieth century."

He was an influence on the young F. Scott Fitzgerald, whose first book, This Side of Paradise, was written while under his spell. Sinister Street, his lengthy 1913"14 bildungsroman, influenced the young and impressed established writers. Against the rules, George Orwell and Cyril Connolly read it as schoolboys. Max Beerbohm praised Mackenzie's writing for vividness and emotional reality Frank Swinnerton, literary critic, comments on Mackenzie's "detail and wealth of reference". John Betjeman said of it, "This has always seemed to me one of the best novels of the best period in English novel writing." Henry James thought it to be the most remarkable book written by a young author in his lifetime.

Following his conversion to Catholicism in 1914, he explored religious themes in a trilogy of novels, The Altar Steps (1922), The Parson's Progress (1923), and The Heavenly Ladder (1924). Following his time on Capri, socialising with the gay exiles there, he treated the homosexuality of a politician sensitively in Thin Ice (1956). He was the literary critic for the London-based national newspaper Daily Mail.

Greek Memories

Mackenzie also worked as an actor, political activist and broadcaster. He served with British Intelligence in the Eastern Mediterranean during the First World War, later publishing four books on his experiences.

According to these books, he was commissioned in the Royal Marines, rising to the rank of captain. His ill-health making front-line service impractical, he was assigned counter-espionage work during the Gallipoli campaign, and in 1916 built up a considerable counter-intelligence network in Athens, Greece then being neutral. While his secret service work seems to have been valued highly by his superiors, including Sir Mansfield Smith-Cumming, his passionate political views, especially his support for the Venizelists, made him a controversial figure and he was expelled from Athens after the Noemvriana.

In 1917, he founded the Aegean Intelligence Service, and enjoyed considerable autonomy for some months as its director. He was offered the Presidency of the Republic of Cerigo, which was briefly independent while Greece was split between Royalists and Venizelists, but declined the office. He was recalled in September 1917. Smith-Cumming considered appointing him as his deputy, but withdrew the suggestion after opposition from within his own service, and Mackenzie played no further active role in the war. In 1919, be was appointed an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE), and was also honoured with the French Legion of Honour, the Serbian Order of the White Eagle, and the Greek Order of the Redeemer.

After the publication of his Greek Memories in 1932, he was prosecuted at the Old Bailey under the Official Secrets Act for quoting from supposedly secret documents. His account of the trial, vividly described, is in Octave Seven (1931"1938) of his autobiography: the result was a fine of £100 and (prosecution) costs of £100. His own costs were over £1,000. Mackenzie states that a plea-bargain (described in the text as "an arrangement") had been reached with the judge prior to the trial: in exchange for his pleading guilty, he would be fined £500 with £500 costs. However Sir Thomas Inskip, then attorney general who prosecuted the case, succeeded in annoying the trial judge to such an extent that he then reduced the penalties to a token amount. The " still banned " 1932 edition of Greek Memories was published in 2011 by Biteback, including the Secret Intelligence Service memo detailing the offending passages of the book.

He was knighted in 1952.

He was president of the Croquet Association from 1953 to 1966. He was also president of the Siamese Cat Club.

He was the subject of This Is Your Life in 1956 when he was surprised by Eamonn Andrews at the King's Theatre, Hammersmith, London.

In 1923 he and his brother-in-law Christopher Stone founded The Gramophone, the still-influential classical music magazine.

A strong supporter of Edward VIII, Mackenzie was a leading member of the Octavians, a minor society that campaigned in support of the king and also for his return to the UK after he became the Duke of Windsor. According to a 1938 Time article Mackenzie had intended to write a book in support of Edward but abandoned the plan when the Duke of Windsor asked him not to publish.

Capri

Between 1913 and 1920 he lived with his wife, Faith, on Capri at Villa Solitaria, and returned to visit in later years. This Italian island near Sorrento was known to be tolerant not just of foreigners in general, but of artists and homosexuals in particular. Faith had an affair with the Italian pianist Renata Borgatti, who was connected to Romaine Brooks.

Compton Mackenzie's observations on the local life of the Italian islanders and foreign residents led to at least two novels, Vestal Fire (1927) and Extraordinary Women (1928). The latter, a roman à clef about a group of lesbians arriving on the island of Sirene, a fictional version of Capri, was published in Britain in the same year as two other ground-breaking novels with lesbian themes, Virginia Woolf's love letter to Vita Sackville-West, Orlando, and Radclyffe Hall's controversial polemic The Well of Loneliness, but Mackenzie's satire did not attract legal attention.

He was friends with Axel Munthe, who built Villa San Michele, and Edwin Cerio, who later became mayor of Capri.

Scottish identity

Mackenzie went to great lengths to trace the steps of his ancestors back to his spiritual home in the Highlands, and displayed a deep and tenacious attachment to Gaelic culture throughout his long and very colourful life. As his biographer, Andro Linklater, commented, "Mackenzie wasn't born a Scot, and he didn't sound like a Scot. But nevertheless his imagination was truly Scottish."

He was an ardent Jacobite, the third Governor-General of the Royal Stuart Society, and a co-founder of the Scottish National Party. He was rector of University of Glasgow from 1931 to 1934, defeating Oswald Mosley, who later led the British Union of Fascists, in his bid for the job.

Mackenzie was from 1920"1923 Tenant of Herm and Jethou. He shares many similarities to the central character in D. H. Lawrence's short story "The Man Who Loved Islands", despite Lawrence saying "the man is no more he than I am." Mackenzie at first asked Martin Secker, who published both authors, not to print the story, and it was left out of one collection.

Mackenzie built a house on the island of Barra in the 1930s. It was on Barra that he gained much inspiration and found creative solitude, and where he befriended a great number of people that he described as "the aristocrats of democracy". One such friend was John MacPherson, known as "The Coddy". MacPherson's son, Neil, recalled Mackenzie as a man of huge imagination, generosity, and talent.

He died in Edinburgh. Such was his love of the Scottish Highlands that he is buried in Barra.

Private life

Mackenzie was married three times. In 1905, he married Faith Stone, who died in 1960; then in 1962, he married Christina MacSween " who died the following year. Finally, he married his dead wife's sister, Lillian MacSween in 1965.

He converted to Catholicism in 1914.

Taxation

After his retirement Sir Compton Mackenzie sold the entire copyright in 20 of his books for a lump sum of £10,000 arguing that this was a capital receipt and not the proceeds of the business. The Court of Appeal held that this was assessable income as part of the proceeds of his business: Mackenzie v Arnold (1952) 33 TC 363.

Select bibliography

• Poems (1907), a novel
• The Gentleman in Grey (1907), a play
• The Passionate Elopement (1911), a revision of the play into a novel
• Carnival (1912), an early best-seller
• Kensington Rhymes (1912), verse
• Sinister Street (1914), 2 volumes, a bildungsroman
• Guy and Pauline (1915)
• The Early Life and Adventures of Sylvia Scarlett (1918), filmed in 1935 as Sylvia Scarlett
• Poor Relations (1919)
• The Vanity Girl (1920), a novel
• Rich Relatives (1921), a novel
• The Altar Steps (1922), and its sequels
• The Seven Ages of Woman (1923), a novel
• The Parson's Progress (1923), a novel (a sequel to The Altar Steps)
• Gramaphone Nights (1923), (with Archibald Marshall) essays
• The Heavenly Ladder (1924), a novel (sequel to The Parson's Progress)
• Santa Claus in Summer (1924)
• The Old Men Of the Sea (1924)
• Coral (1925), a novel (a sequel to Carnival)
• Fairy Gold (1926), a novel
• Rogues and Vagabonds (1927), a novel
• Vestal Fire (1927), novel
• Extremes meet (1928), a novel
• Extraordinary Women (1928)
• The Three Couriers (1929),
• Gallipoli Memories (1929)
• April Fools, A farce of manners (1930), novel (sequel to Poor Relations)
• Told (1930), Children's tales and verses.
• First Athenian Memories (1931)
• Buttercups and Daisies (1931), a novel
• Our Street (1931), a novel
• Unconsidered Trifles (1932), Collected essays.
• Greek Memories (1932), a continuation of First Athenian Memories.
• Lost Cause (1931), a play
• Prince Charlie (1932), biography
• Water on the Brain (1933), an absurdist spy novel parody.
• Literature in My Time (1933), criticism
• Reaped and Bound (1933), collected essays
• The Darkening Green (1934), a novel
• Maraton and Salamis (1934), history
• Prince Charlie and His Ladies (1934), history
• Catholicism and Scotland (1934), history
• The Book of Barra (1936), (with J.L. Campbell)
• Figure of Eight (1936), a novel
• Pericles (1937), history
• The Four Winds of Love (6 volumes 1937"45)
• The Windsor Tapestry Being a study of the life, heritage and abdication of HRH The Duke of Windsor (1938)
• A Musical Chair (1939), essays
• Aegean Memories (1940), memoirs
• The Four Winds of Love (6 volumes 1937"45)
• The Red Tapeworm (1941), a novel
• The Monarch of the Glen (1941), a novel
• Calvary (with F.C. Mackenzie) (1942),
• Wind of Freedom: The history of the invasion of Greece by the Axis powers, 1940"1941 (1944)
• Keep the Home Guard Turning (1943), a novel
• Mr Roosevelt (1943), biography
• Brockhouse (1944), history
• Dr Benes (1946), biography
• The Vital Flame (1946) (on the gas industry)
• Whisky Galore (1947), filmed in 1948 as Whisky Galore!
• All over the Place (1949), diary
• Hunting the Fairies (1949)
• Eastern Epic, an account of the part played by the Indian Army in the Second World War, Vol. I (1951),
• I Took a Journey ... A tour of the National Trust Properties (1951),
• The Rival Monster (1952)
• The House of Coalport 1750"1950 (1951), history
• The Queen's House. A history of Buckingham Palace (1953), history
• Realms of Silver. One Hundred Years of Banking in the East (1954), a history of the Chartered Bank of India, Australia and China.
• The Savoy of London (1953), history
• Ben Nevis Goes East (1954), a novel
• Echoes (1954), Broadcast talks
• My Record of Music (1955), musical autobiography
• Thin Ice (1956)
• Sublime Tobacco (1957), a novel
• Rockets Galore (1957), a sequel, filmed in 1958 as Rockets Galore!
• The Lunatic Republic (1959), a novel
• Cats' Company (1960) with photos by Harrison Marks
• Greece in My Life (1960), essays
• Mezzotint (1961), a novel
• Catmint (1961), imaginary conversations
• On Moral Courage (1962)
• Look at Cats (1964)
• Little Cat Lost (1965), children's story
• The Stolen Soprano (1965)
• Paper Lives (1966), a novel, sequel to The Red Tapeworm
• The Stairs That Kept Going Down (1967)
• My Life and Times in ten volumes each covering eight years, published as "Octave One" to "Octave Ten"(1963"1971)
• The Strongest Man on Earth (1967), mythology for young people