Last Chance To Nominate Chiswick Author for Blue Plaque
Competition aims to offer an alternative after rejection of Anthony Burgess
First edition of Burgess's Devil of a State (left). Clockwork Orange cover design (right)
Time is running out for Chiswick book lovers to submit suggestions for a fresh Chiswick author to be nominated for a blue plaque, after Anthony Burgess was turned down for a second time. Competition entries close on Friday 1 October for the chance to win a first edition of Burgess’s Devil of a State, donated by Stephen Foster of Foster Books in Chiswick High Road.
Burgess, best known for his dystopian novel A Clockwork Orange, lived at 24 Glebe Street between 1963 and 1968, and wrote several of his most important novels there.
The decision by English Heritage to turn Burgess down for a second time was debated at the Chiswick Book Festival earlier this month. Ahead of the session, the Festival invited the public to suggest Chiswick authors and buildings they would nominate for a blue plaque, in not more than 30 words. See competition details here.
“Chiswick already boasts several blue plaques for its authors, including Alexander Pope, EM Forster and Patrick Hamilton, and WB Yeats has one from the Bedford Park Society” said Torin Douglas, director of the Chiswick Book Festival. “But there are plenty more on our Writers Trail who would qualify, if people are willing to champion them.”
Chiswick authors who would qualify, under English Heritage rules, include Booker Prize winner Iris Murdoch (The Sea, The Sea), double Oscar winner Robert Bolt (Doctor Zhivago, A Man For All Seasons), Oscar nominee Alun Owen (A Hard Day’s Night), French novelist Alain-Fournier (Le Grand Meaulnes) and Russian writer Sergius Stepniak, the model for the Russian exile in The Railway Children.
Some on the Writers Trail already have a blue plaque in other parts of London. Nancy Mitford, who lived at Strand on the Green, is celebrated at the bookshop where she worked in north London. John Osborne, who submitted the manuscript of Look Back In Anger from his houseboat in Chiswick, received one in May at his previous home in Caithness Road, Hammersmith.
Others named on the ‘Chiswick Timeline of Writers and Books’ who might qualify for a plaque include novelist Geoffrey Household (Rogue Male) and philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. See Chiswick Timeline of Writers and Books here.
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September 25, 2021
