Background
He was born in Knightsbridge, London, and brought up in Redhill, Surrey.
He was born in Knightsbridge, London, and brought up in Redhill, Surrey.
He was educated at Malvern College, and Balliol College, Oxford, which he entered in 1913 to read history.
His studies were interrupted by service in a hospital in France from 1915. And then work in the Foreign Office. He did not complete his degree.
In the 1920s he was in Paris, writing fiction.
He later became literary editor of the New Statesman, worked at the British Broadcasting Corporation and in liaison with the Free French in World World War II, and subsequently as a book reviewer for the Sunday Times. He was awarded the Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1955 Queens Birthday Honours.