English writer and socialite
Elizabeth Bibesco
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Elizabeth Asquith Bibesco, circa 1919
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Born
| Elizabeth Charlotte Lucy Asquith
(
1897-02-26
)
26 February 1897
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Died
| 7 April 1945
(1945-04-07)
(aged 48)
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Resting place
| Mogo?oaia
, Romania
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Nationality
| British
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Other names
| Elizabeth Asquith
Elizabeth Bibesco
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Occupation(s)
| Actress, writer, novelist
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Years active
| 1921?1940
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Spouse
| Antoine Bibesco
(1919?1945)
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Children
| 1
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Parents
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Elizabeth, Princess Bibesco
(born
Elizabeth Charlotte Lucy Asquith
; 26 February 1897 ? 7 April 1945) was an English socialite, actress and writer between 1921 and 1940. She was the daughter of
H. H. Asquith
, the British Prime Minister, and the writer
Margot Asquith
, and the wife of
Antoine Bibesco
, a Romanian prince and diplomat. She drew on her experience in British high society in her work. A final posthumous collection of her stories, poems and aphorisms was published under the title
Haven
in 1951, with a preface by
Elizabeth Bowen
.
Childhood and youth
[
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]
Elizabeth Charlotte Lucy Asquith was the first child of
H. H. Asquith
(British Prime Minister, 1908?1916) and his second wife,
Margot Tennant
. As candidly recorded in her mother's 1920 autobiography, she was a precocious child of uncertain temper.
[1]
Life as the Prime Minister's daughter thrust her into the public eye at an early age and she developed a quick wit and a social presence beyond her years. At the age of 12 she asked
George Bernard Shaw
to write a play to be produced by her for a charity benefit. He wrote
The Fascinating Foundling
, which she directed with other children as actors.
[2]
When she was just 14,
The Times
wrote that "many members of the House have made the acquaintance of Miss Asquith and in expressing their concern for her health, have referred to her charm of manner and to the interest which she has begun already to show in political matters." As a teenager, during
World War I
, she was given opportunities to do "good works", organising and performing in "matinees" for the servicemen. Her first known literary effort was a short duologue called "Off and On" which she performed with
Nelson Keys
in 1916 at the Palace Theatre. In the same year she organised a large show of portraits by
John Singer Sargent
at the
Grafton Galleries
to aid the Art Fund and a "Poets' Reading" in aid of the Star and Garter Fund. In 1918, she played small roles in two silent war movies by
D.W. Griffith
,
Hearts of the World
and
The Great Love
.
[
citation needed
]
Marriage and travels
[
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]
On 29 April 1919, she married Prince
Antoine Bibesco
, member of the
House of Bibescu
and a Romanian diplomat stationed in London, a man 22 years her senior. Taking place at
St. Margaret's, Westminster
, it was the society wedding of the year, attended by everyone from
Queen Mary
to
George Bernard Shaw
. The wedding was filmed by the newly formed British Moving Picture News organization. After the marriage, Prince and Princess Bibesco lived in Paris at the Bibesco townhouse at 45, Quai Bourbon at the tip of the
Ile St-Louis
looking up the river toward
Notre Dame cathedral
. The walls of the apartment were decorated with huge canvases by
Edouard Vuillard
. "They weren't pictures. They were gardens into which you walked through a frame," wrote
Enid Bagnold
.
[3]
Antoine Bibesco was a lifelong friend of
Marcel Proust
and after his marriage to Elizabeth she too became a favourite of the reclusive writer. At the time of her marriage Proust wrote that she "was probably unsurpassed in intelligence by any of her contemporaries," and added that "she looked like a lovely figure in an Italian fresco".
[4]
He would leave his house late at night to visit them, to discuss Shakespeare with Elizabeth or to gossip with Antoine until dawn. Elizabeth wrote a moving obituary for Proust in the November 1922
New Statesman
.
"Gently, deliberately, he drew me into that magic circle of his personality with the ultimate sureness of a look that needs no touch to seal it. Insensibly you were drawn into that intricate cobweb of iridescent steel, his mind, which, interlacing with yours, spread patterns of light and shade over your most intimate thoughts."
[5]
Elizabeth also travelled with her husband in his capacity as
Romanian ambassador
, first to
Washington, D.C.
(1920?1926) and then to
Madrid
(1927?1931).
Their only child, Priscilla Helen Alexandra Bibesco, later Hodgson, was born in London in 1920; she died in Paris in 2004.
[6]
[7]
Writings
[
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]
Between 1921 and 1940, Bibesco published three collections of short stories, four novels, two plays and a book of poetry.
[8]
Katharine Angell
, reviewing
Balloons
for
The Nation
in 1923 wrote, "Elizabeth Bibesco uses for her sketches material from which
Katherine Mansfield
would have made short stories, and
Henry James
, novels ... Elizabeth Bibesco has a genius for compression ? the compression into a few phrases of all the details of a situation, into a few pages of the hopes and failures of a lifetime".
[9]
Her collections of short stories were reviewed on both sides of the Atlantic and her novel
The Fir and the Palm
was serialised in
The Washington Post
in November and December 1924.
Bibesco's last novel,
The Romantic
, published in 1940, starts with a dedication to
Falange Espanola
founder
Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera
, whom Bibesco had known during her stay in Madrid where her husband was Romanian ambassador (1927-31): "
To Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera. I promised you a book before it was begun. It is yours now that it is finished -- Those we love die for us only when we die--
".
[10]
A thorough appraisal of Bibesco's work was written by
Elizabeth Bowen
in an introduction to
Haven
, the 1951 posthumous collection of Bibesco's stories, poems and aphorisms. In her essay, Bowen wrote that, "The Bibesco characters seem to be the inhabitants of a special milieu, in which the more ordinary taboos of feeling and brakes on speech do not operate."
[11]
Final years
[
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]
Elizabeth was in Romania during
World War II
and died there of
pneumonia
in
1945
, aged 48. She was buried in the Bibesco family graveyard on the grounds of
Mogo?oaia Palace
outside
Bucharest
. Her epitaph reads, "My soul has gained the freedom of the night" ? the last line of the last poem in her 1927 collection.
[12]
Her death was the final sorrow for her mother, Margot, who died within months of her daughter's death. Prince Antoine, forced out of Romania after the war, never returned to his homeland. He died in 1951 and was buried in Paris. Priscilla Hodgson, the couple's only child, continued to live at 45, Quai Bourbon until her death in 2004.
[13]
Portraits
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Elizabeth's portrait was painted twice by
Augustus John
, in 1919 and again five years later. The first painting (titled "Elizabeth Asquith") shows her as a vivacious debutante in a feather stole over bare shoulders. This picture is in the
Laing Art Gallery
in
Newcastle upon Tyne
, England. In the second portrait, seen at right (titled "Princess Antoine Bibesco"), Elizabeth appears slightly weary and melancholic, her eyes averted just enough to suggest a break in her former self-confidence. She wears a
mantilla
given to her father by the
Queen of Portugal
[14]
and holds one of her own books. When shown at the
Royal Academy
summer show in 1924,
Mary Chamot
, writing in
Country Life
, wrote of this painting that it "has the force to make every other picture in the room look insipid, so dazzling is the contrast between the mysterious darkness of her eyes and hair and the shimmering brilliance of the white lace she wears over her head."
[15]
Selected works
[
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]
- I Have Only Myself to Blame
, 1921 ? short stories
- Balloons
, 1922 ? short stories
- The Painted Swan
, 1922 ? play
- The Fir and the Palm
, 1924 ? novel
- The Whole Story
, 1925 ? short stories
- There is No Return
, 1927 ? novel
- Points of View
, 1927 ? play
- Poems
, 1927 ? poetry
- Portrait of Caroline
, 1931 ? novel
- The Romantic
, 1940 ? novel
References
[
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]
- ^
Asquith, Margot
,
An Autobiography
, Doran, 1922, vol III, p. 53
- ^
Archibald Henderson,
George Bernard Shaw: Man of the Century
, Appleton-Century-Crofts, New York, 1956, p. 572
- ^
Bagnold, Enid
,
Autobiography
,
Heinemann
(1969)
- ^
Bibesco, Antoine, Letters of Marcel Proust to Antoine Bibesco,
Thames & Hudson
, 1953, pg 39
- ^
Bibesco, Elizabeth,
New Statesman
, 1922, p. 235
- ^
Obituary, Priscilla Bibesco
,
The Independent
, Saturday, 27 November 2004.
- ^
Family Portrait: Prince Antoine Bibesco with his daughter Princess Priscilla Bibesco and Mother-in-Law Margot Asquith, 1932. National Portrait Gallery, London
- ^
Darby, Paul, Pilgrimage: The Life of Elizabeth Bibesco, pp. 100?114
- ^
Angell, Katharine,
The Nation
, 4 April 1923, p. 397
- ^
Bibesco, Elizabeth,
The Romantic
, William Heinemann, London, 1940. See: Constenla, Tereixa, El Pais, Madrid, 1 October 2015 & Badcock, James and Rayner, Gordon,
The Telegraph
, London, 2 October 2015.
- ^
Bowen, Elizabeth
, "Introduction to Bibesco, Elizabeth", Haven: short stories, poems, and aphorisms (1951), J. Barrie.
- ^
Bibesco, Marthe, In Memoriam, Les Oeuvres Libres, 1946, p. 92
- ^
The Independent
, 27 November 2004.
- ^
Asquith, H. H.
,
Letters to a Friend
, Bles, 1933, vol. 2, p. 176
- ^
Chamot, Mary, Country Life magazine, 10 May 1924
External links
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