British novelist Peter Vansittart died 4 October 2008. Born 27 August 1920 in Bedford, England, he is best known for his historical novels, which mix in myth, modernism, modern language, historical settings, and take very long views of their subject matter. The New York Times says “The Death of Robin Hood (1981), for example, began in Sherwood Forest about 3,000 B.C., leaped forward to the era of King John, took another leap to the Luddite rebellions of 1812 and ended up in the Britain of the 1930s. Parsifal (1988), after beginning in ancient Gaul, wended its way to Heinrich Himmler’s headquarters in Westphalia.”
His works were admired by critics, but not as much by the reading public. The Times quotes him as once saying “My novels have been appreciated, if not always enjoyed, more by the critics than the reading public, which shows no sign of enjoying them at all. This must be partly due to my obsession with language and speculation at the expense of narrative, however much I relish narrative in others.” London’s Daily Telegraph says none of his novels sold more than 3,000 copies.
Vanisttart started as a reviewer of others’ novels, and the Daily Telegraph says, “After the heroic portrayals of earlier historical writers, Vansittart sought to find his own authorial voice by approaching history as ‘a compendium of rumour, misunderstanding, inaccurate translation, error and fraud’.”
Vanisttart was a teacher and school headmaster before turning to writing full time. He directed London’s Burgess School from 1947 to 1959. In addition to more than 30 novels (some historical, some contemporary), he wrote another score of nonfiction books, including children’s history, memoirs, and anthologies.
He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1985, and was appointed OBE this year. He published two volumes of autobiography, Paths from a White Horse (1985) and Survival Tactics (1999). His last novel, Secret Protocols (2006), is considered one of his best.