Ronald Firbank

Firbank, Ronald (Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank), 1886–1926, English author. Of a delicate and eccentric nature, Firbank lived the life of a leisured aesthete. His novels, which have appealed to a small but appreciative audience, include Vainglory (1915), Valmouth (1919), Prancing Nigger (1924), and Concerning the Eccentricities of Cardinal Pirelli (1926). Written in a highly personal, satiric style with no conventional plots, his books are disciplined journeys into a world inhabited by bizarre characters. His writings have had an influence on the novels of such writers as Evelyn Waugh, Ivy Compton-Burnett, and Aldous Huxley.

See his complete works (with a preface by A. Powell, 1961); biographies by M. J. Benkovitz (1969) and B. Brophy (1973).

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