Sybille Bedford lived an exceptional life. She was born into wealth and luxury. The wealth was lost but she always managed to live in luxury. She wrote some my all time favourite books that hinted at her extraordinary life this biography fills in the gaps. At times it read a little like a list of houses, parties and weekends away, I would have liked more of Sybille. A glimpse into a lifestyle that is no longer possible and fascinating.

Having read, and enjoyed, other biographies by Selina Hastings, I was delighted to receive her latest for review. Interestingly, while previous biographies by the author have been of favourite authors of mine, such as W. Somerset Maugham and Evelyn Waugh, I am less familiar with the work of Sybille Bedford and have read only some of her non-fiction. I was intrigued to find out more about her and was surprised that, while I love Maugham and Waugh, I was less impressed with them on a personal level (perhaps, particularly Maugham) by the end of reading their biographies, I found myself warming more and more to Bedford as I read of her life.

Sybille Bedford lived to a ripe old age and was born in 1911, so her life spanned all of the twentieth century. She was born to an impoverished, eccentric and remote, Bavarian baron and a much younger mother, who was the daughter of a wealthy merchant. Sybille was the only child of the unhappy marriage, although her father had a daughter by a previous marriage. Her father was disappointed she was not a boy, while her mother felt tied to a marriage she wanted to escape by the birth of a child. Sybille felt unwanted – indeed, her mother told her so, in no uncertain terms, and this relationship was a difficult one throughout Sybille’s life.

In her life, Sybille announced she wished she had spent more time writing and less time falling in love. Having read this, wonderfully researched, biography, I have to agree. Sybille seemed to fall in love with almost monotonous regularity and most of her relationships, although not all, were with women. These love affairs do become a little confusing at times, although this is partly because Sybille appears to have been a kind-hearted person, who tended to remain on good terms with lovers and friends, throughout her life, so people tend to appear, and re-appear. She also had some problems getting published initially and was easily discouraged (in a very human way) by criticism, bad reviews or unkind comments. This often led to her thinking about writing, rather than actually working, although she had a great deal of success.

Sybille came from a German background, which caused her a great deal of discomfort; not least because her mother had a Jewish heritage. Indeed, Sybille gained her, very English, surname, after marrying an English man she met only once, in order to gain British nationality before the war. There is a real sense of the world closing in, as German émigré authors flocked to the part of France where Sybille was living pre-war, and of that sense of doom. Indeed, Bedford was uncomfortable with her German heritage throughout her life and found it difficult to come to terms with.

From the war years in the United States, her friendships with notable figures, such as Aldous Huxley, Klaus Mann and Elizabeth Jane Howard, her travelling and her writing; from fiction often based on her childhood to her travel writing and reports of notable criminal trials, this is a really detailed re-telling of an important, twentieth century author. As well as the story of a life, it is the story of an era. Of her early life, where she was much respected as the daughter of a Prussian nobleman, but lacked much formal education. Of being desperate to leave Europe during the war and resented on her return for living in comparative comfort in New York and LA. Of her love of food and the fine things of life and her constant search for love and inspiration, which made her always lively and engaged, throughout her life. This has left me longing to explore Sybille Bedford’s work and glad to have read about her life. As always, Selina Hastings never disappoints. I received a copy of this book from the publisher, via NetGalley, for review.

I hadn't ever heard of Sybille before, but what a life she has had. It was inspiring, particularly since the impact of her accomplishments was rendered so beautifully in this book.

I came across Sybille Bedford as an author during my time at Penguin and devoured her autobiographical last book “Quicksands”. What an unusual woman and what an extraordinary life. Drawn very much to nonfiction and biographies at the moment, I was very happy to see Selina Hasting’s “Sybille Bedford – An Appetite for Life” announced to be published in November and lucky enough to read an early proof. Selina Hastings has written an incredibly thorough and objective account of Sybille Bedford’s fascinating cosmopolitan life.
Born in 1911 in Germany of aristocratic half-Jewish parents who had a disastrous marriage, she spent her turbulent childhood in Germany but lived the majority of her adult life like a vagabond between France, England, Italy and the WWII years in the USA and some time in Mexico. Her relationship with her promiscuous mother Lisa was a very difficult one at best with her half sister Katzi often providing much needed support in her early years. Bedford always knew she wanted to be a writer soon travelling in prominent intellectual circle although it took years before she took pen to paper. Being openly Lesbian with some bisexual affairs, she had an incredible sexual appetite up into old age falling in and out of love constantly, often affairs turning into lifelong friendships with former lovers providing financial support when she was hard up. Her most famous entanglement was with Aldous Huxley and his wife Maria who became mentors and lifelong friends arranging a “bugger marriage” to a Mr. Bedford in England enabling her to become a British subject during a time of political upheaval in Europe when her assets were frozen in Germany.

Bedford’s social and intellectual life was extraordinary and reads like a European who is who of writers and artists. What astonished me the most was how readily everyone put up friends for months, sometimes years in their houses offering financial and emotional support if needed affording Sybille Bedford her restless life style moving from country to country without a home base for many years. She was a terrific wine and food connoisseur but also a terrible snob looking down on people who did not meet her intellectual expectations or background, selfishly demanding her lovers to support her eccentric lifestyle disregarding their needs.

I became very irritated with her behavior several times during the read but this is a fascinating biography of an unusual woman who was not a feminist and lived up to 95 despite the large amounts of food and drink she had consumed in her life.
But it is also a historical document of a century and an incomprehensible life style that has completely disappeared.

I'd never heard of Sybille Bedford before reading this book. I requested it because it looked really interesting and she seemed like the kind of woman I would like to know about. I was right. It was an interesting book and she is exactly the sort of woman I enjoyed finding out about. I am now going to hunt down her novels and read them. It stuns me that she was so feted in her day, and so well considered as an author and yet I hadn't heard of her, and I studied literature at university and women's literature as a post grad. I'd like to bet that if she had been a male author I'd have heard of her, even if I hadn't read her. She lived an amazing life, all 95 years of it seemed pretty jam packed one way and another, with lovers, with friends, with work. Her network was vast and starry. A fascinating life, well told.

I hadn't thought much about Sybille Bedford since trying and failing to read her first major novel 'A Legacy' in my teens but having read this, I may try to return to it. There are some writers whose place in the literary canon still feels 'uncertain' despite receiving serious recognition during their lifetime and despite being shortlisted for the Booker Prize and getting an MBE, Sybille remains one of these. Her early life, which she consistently mined for material, is truly fascinating - and as a fellow greedy gourmet, I could totally understand her obsession with food, though her pickiness about wine rather left me in the dust! Another interesting thing about the book was that Sybille always seemed to be having passionate affairs with a ready supply of beautiful women and yet didn't think much of being identified as 'a Lesbian' (her capitals) and, despite living her own child-free, rackety life, became more right-wing in later life and thought that equality for women had gone too far! A fascinating look at a neglected writer - I may well return to Sybille and her contemporaries after reading this very satisfying biography.