British Poet and Novelist. Born Francis Osbert Sacheverell Sitwell, his father was politician Sir George Reresby Sitwell, 4th Baronet, who was a member of the British House of Commons between 1885 and 1895. He grew up in the family seat at Renishaw Hall, Derbyshire, England and at Scarborough, and attended Ludgrove School in Wokingham, Berkshire, England, then Eton College in Eton, Berkshire from 1906 to 1909. In 1911 he joined the Sherwood Rangers but transferred to the Grenadier Guards at the Tower of London. When World War I broke out in July 1914 he enlisted in the British Army and saw combat action on the Western Front, near Ypres, Belgium, where he wrote his first poem "Babel" that was published in The Times newspaper in May 1916. In 1918 he left the Army at the rank of Captain and ran as a Liberal Party candidate in the 1918 general election for the constituency of Scarborough and Whitby, finishing second. He devoted himself to poetry, art criticism and controversial journalism and together with his brother, he sponsored a controversial exhibition of works by artists Henri Matisse, Maurice Utrillo, Pablo Picasso, and Amedeo Modigliani. He published two books of poems, "Argonaut and Juggernaut" (1919) and "At the House of Mrs Kinfoot" (1921). In the mid-1920s he met David Horner who was his lover and companion for most of his life. In 1924 he published his first work of fiction, "Triple Fugue," and visits to Italy and Germany produced "Discursions on Travel, Art and Life" (1925). His first novel, "Before the Bombardment" (1926), was well reviewed by the critics but his next novel "The Man Who Lost Himself" (1929) failed to receive the same critical acclaim. He followed this with novels "Miracle on Sinai" (1934) and "Those Were the Days" (1937) which also failed to receive great reviews. In 1940 he published a collection of short stories, "Open the Door" along with his 5th novel "A Place of One's Own." His "Selected Poems" (1943) and a book of essays titled "Sing High, Sing Low" (1944) were reasonably well received. After the death of his father in 1943, he succeeded to the baronetcy and started an autobiography that ran to four volumes, "Left Hand, Right Hand" (1943), "The Scarlet Tree" (1946), "Great Morning" (1948), and "Laughter in the Next Room" (1949). He followed his autobiography with a collection of essays about various people he had known, "Noble Essences: A Book of Characters" (1950). In 1951 he wrote "The Four Continents" (1951), a book of travel, reminiscence and observation. At the time of the abdication of King Edward VIII, he wrote and published an anonymous poem called "Rat Week," attacking those supposed friends of the King who deserted him when his alliance with American socialite, Wallis Simpson, became known. In the 1950s he began exhibiting signs of Parkinson's disease and by the mid-1960s, it became so severe that he had to abandon writing. His final works were "Tales My Father Taught Me" (1962) and "Pound Wise" (1963). He died of complications from Parkinson's disease at the age of 76 in Montegufoni, a castle near Florence, Italy which his father had bought derelict in 1909 and restored as his personal residence.