Acton, Harold
Entry updated 3 October 2022. Tagged: Author.
(1904-1994) Italian-born UK editor, translator and author, much of his life spent in the land of his birth; best known for highly civilized reflections, in books like Memoirs of an Aesthete (1948), on his own style of life. A period in China during the 1930s inspired some translation work, including Glue and Lacquer: Four Cautionary Tales (coll 1941), adapted from Hsing Shih Hêng Yen ["Common Tales to Rouse the World"] (coll 1627) by Fêng Mêng-lung. Prince Isidore (1950) is a fantasy about a bearer of the Evil Eye.
Acton's sf novel, Cornelian (1928 chap), tells of a popular singer (see Music) in a world which privileges old age. He was knighted in 1974. [JC]
Sir Harold Mario Mitchell Acton
born La Pietra, near Florence, Italy: 5 July 1904
died La Pietra, near Florence, Italy: 27 February 1994
works
- Cornelian (London: Chatto and Windus, 1928) [chap: illus/E McKnight Kauffer: hb/nonpictorial]
- Glue and Lacquer: Four Cautionary Tales (London: Golden Cockerel Press, 1941) [coll: trans from the Chinese of Hsing Shih H'ng: hb/nonpictorial]
- Prince Isidore (London: Methuen, 1950) [hb/Feliks Topolski]
links
previous versions of this entry