L. P. Hartley
| L. P. Hartley | |
|---|---|
| Born | Leslie Poles Hartley 30 December 1895 Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire |
| Died | 13 December 1972 (aged 76) London |
| Genre | Novel, short story |
| Notable works |
Eustace and Hilda, The Go-Between |
| Notable awards |
James Tait Black Memorial Prize 1947 Commander of the Order of the British Empire 1956 |
Leslie Poles Hartley CBE (30 December 1895 – 13 December 1972), known as L. P. Hartley, was a British novelist and short story writer. His best-known novels are the Eustace and Hilda trilogy (1947) and The Go-Between (1953). The latter was made into a 1971 film, directed by Joseph Losey with a star cast, in an adaptation by Harold Pinter. Its opening sentence, "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there", has become almost proverbial. His 1957 novel The Hireling was made into a critically acclaimed film of the same title in 1973.
He is also a noted writer of short fiction that has been acclaimed for its eerie, strange qualities that have drawn comparison with the macabre wit of Saki and the supernatural fiction of Henry James and Walter de la Mare.
Leslie Poles Hartley was born on 30 December 1895 in Whittlesey, Cambridgeshire, the son of Bessie and Harry Hartley. He had two sisters, Enid and Annie Norah. While he was young, the family moved to a small country estate near Peterborough. Hartley was educated in Cliftonville, Thanet, then briefly at Clifton College, where he first met Clifford Henry Benn Kitchin, then at Harrow. In 1915, during the First World War, he went up to Balliol College, Oxford, to read modern history, and there he befriended Aldous Huxley. This was a time when most of his contemporaries were volunteering for the armed services instead of pursuing university careers.
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