Free Lost Years by Christopher Isherwood

U.K. publisher (at Methuen) quoted in Brian Finney,
Christopher Isherwood: A Critical Biography
(London, 1979), p. 282.
    8 “Sketch for a Marxist Interpretation of Literature,”
The Mind in Chains: Socialism and the Cultural Revolution,
ed. C. Day-Lewis (London, 1937), pp. 46–7.
    9 P. 190.
    10 Diaries 1960–1983, April 19, 1971.
    11 “Sketch for a Marxist Interpretation of Literature,” pp. 51–2.
    12
The World in the Evening
(New York, 1954), p. 66; (London, 1954), p. 79.
    13 Isherwood met Burns in 1947, and records in the reconstructed diary that he wished he had had time to know him better.
End as a Man
he called “an exciting discovery and the beginning of Christopher’s (more or less) constant enthusiasm for Willingham’s work” (p. 176, n.). Of
Knock on Any Door
he writes, “Christopher was much moved . . . when he read it; this was
his
idea of a sad story. He fell in love with the hero and wrote Willard Motley a fan letter” (p. 140, n.2). Motley’s hero, a heterosexual petty criminal who hustles as trade part time, personifies the absolute defiance of authority which so often captivated Isherwood in his real-life acquaintances.
    14 P. 159, n. 1.
    15 P. 54.
    16 P. 235.
    17 P. 182.
    18 P. 53.
    19 p. 182.
    20
D1
, pp. 389–94.
    21 P. 198.
    22
Christopher and His Kind (C&HK)
(New York, 1976), p. 16; (London, 1977), p. 20.
    23
C&HK
, U.S., p. 17; U.K., p. 20.
    24 Diaries 1960–1983, February 22, 1971.
    25 Diaries 1960–1983, March 2, 1971.
    26 Diaries 1960–1983, March 19, 1971.
    27 p. 60, n.2.
    28 Diaries 1960–1983, November 26, 1970.
    29 August 17, 1949,
D1
, p. 414.
    30 P. 200.
    31 Diaries 1960–1983, November 2, 1973.
    32 P. 55.
    33 Diaries 1960–1983, November 26, 1970.
    34 Written 1913–1914; revised 1959–1960.
    35 Pp. 94–5.
    36 P. 284.
    37 P. 284.
    38
C&HK,
U.S., p. 21; U.K., p. 23.
    39 P. 148.
    40
D1
, April 28, 1942, p. 220.
    41 P. 286.
    42 Diaries 1960–1983, March 28, 1974.
    43 Diaries 1960–1983, September 11, 1974.
    44 Diaries 1960–1983, January 2, 1977.
    45 February 13, 1921, to Kathleen Isherwood, in Christopher Isherwood,
The Repton Letters
, ed. George Ramsden (Settrington, England, 1997), p. 14.

Lost Years
January 1, 1945–May 9, 1951

1945
    DAY-TO-DAY diary, January 1, 1945: “Started work on my story.” What story? Perhaps an early attempt to do something with the material from the journal about Christopher’s stay at the Friends Service Committee hostel at Haverford, 1941–1942. Or perhaps another attempt to write about the character called “Paul” 1 (in those days, he wasn’t yet altogether Denny Fouts) and his adventures on the Greek island, which later appeared in “Ambrose.” [ 2 ]
    On January 2, Christopher took the manuscript of
Vedanta and the Western World
to be published by Marcel Rodd. Evidently they were still on good terms with Rodd at the Vedanta Center. Marcel is first referred to on June 20 in the 1944 journal, when he took over the distribution of the Gita, [ 3 ] which had already been set up by the printer who printed the magazine. Christopher knew him in a sort of backstairs way, as one of Vernon’s many former admirers, and Christopher flattered himself that he could do satisfactory business with Rodd and not get cheated, despite Rodd’s character. I can’t remember that Rodd ever actually cheated the Vedanta Society, but he caused a lot of annoyance and inconvenience in later years—failing to republish but refusing to give up his rights and ignoring the letters written to him by the society’s lawyers. And for all this Christopher was responsible because he had introduced Rodd to Swami. (Though I think it was Denny who had suggested that he should do so. Denny’s advice was so often sensible but mischievous.)
    In the 1944 journal, it is said that Rodd “is terribly anxious to become a respectable