Cyril Connolly

Cyril Connolly , 1903-74, English critic and editor, b. Coventry, England. After attending the Univ. of Oxford, he began his career as a journalist. With Stephen Spender he founded Horizon (1939-49), a small literary magazine that reflected Connolly's own iconoclastic and mordant attitudes toward contemporary society. He also used his critical gifts as a long-time book reviewer for The New Statesman and London's Sunday Times. Among his works are Rock Pool (1935), a satirical novel that ranks with the best of Huxley and Waugh ; Enemies of Promise (1938), an autobiography of ideas; The Unquiet Grave (1944), a potpourri of critical commentaries, quotations, and aphorisms; The Condemned Playground (1945) and Previous Convictions (1964), both collections of literary essays; and The Modern Movement: 100 Key Books From England, France, and America, 1880-1950 (1965).

Bibliography: See biography by C. Fisher (1995); D. Pryce-Jones, Cyril Connolly: Journal and Memoir (1983); M. Shelden, Friends of Promise: Cyril Connolly and the World of Horizon (1989).

Connolly, Cyril (Vernon) (1903–74), was for many years a weekly reviewer for the Sunday Times. In 1939, with Spender, he founded Horizon. His only novel, The Rock Pool (Paris, 1936; London, 1947), is a satiric extravaganza describing the adventures of an artistic expatriate colony on the French Riviera. His works include Enemies of Promise (1938), critical essays; The Unquiet Grave (1944), published under the pseudonym of Palinurus, which consists of aphorisms, reflections, etc.; and various collections of essays. Connolly's favourite themes include the dangers of early success and the hazardous lure of literary immortality, but he also celebrated the ephemeral pleasure of food, wine, and travel.