In the introduction to Great Morning! (1947), the third book of his widely acclaimed five-volume autobiography, Osbert Sitwell referred to himself as "novelist, poet, satirist, and writer of essays," a hierarchical ordering of his literary efforts reflecting his personal valuation of his attainments as a man of letters. Travel writing is subsumed under "writer of essays," for his several travel books are generally collections of essays previously published in periodicals. In relegating his essay writing to last place Sitwell showed fashionable scorn for mere journalistic pursuits and a loathing to admit the necessity during much of his life to write for money to supplement his allowance from his miserly father.

Osbert Sitwell has earned a place in the pantheon of twentieth-century British writers for his role in a well-known literary trio--joining his sister, Edith, and brother, Sacheverell, in ushering in modernism in British poetry--and for his autobiographical memoirs, which...