Bedford, Sybille

Bedford, Sybille, 1911–2006, English writer, b. Charlottenberg, Germany, as Sybille von Schoenebeck. She worked as a legal reporter for various publications, covering more than 100 trials including the Auschwitz trials in Frankfurt (1963–65) and the trial of Jack Ruby in Dallas (1964). She also wrote books on food and wine and on travel, e.g., her first published book, A Visit to Don Otavio (1953), an account of a trip to Mexico. Written in an elegant prose style, her four novels–A Legacy (1956), A Favorite of the Gods (1963), A Compass Error (1968), and Jigsaw (1989)–are in many ways sociohistorical, and largely concern the interaction between character and events. Bedford, for 35 years a close friend of Aldous Huxley, wrote his official biography (2 vol., 1973–74).

See her Quicksands: A Memoir (2005).

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