More Dead Gay People... Born On This Day- December 6th... Osbert Sitwell

I am a decidedly anti-classist, with a lifelong concern for the rights of the poor, downtrodden & the marginalized: racial minorities, women, & LGBT people .I possess an overwhelming alarm at the Republicans’ championing of the very rich at the expense of the middle class & the unemployed. I despised the Reagans, except for Ron Jr., who I once showered with at the gym, & that Reagan is very, very gifted. Why then am I attracted to reading about & seeing movies about the British Upper-Class during the Victorian, Edwardian & 20th century?


The 3 Sitwell siblings: Edith, born in 1887, Osbert, 5 years younger, & Sacheverell, 5 years younger than Osbert, were among the first examples of our new century’s phenomenon, the person who is famous for being famous.

Osbert on the right with his siblings

England between the wars was an epoch of a literary golden age. Evelyn Waugh, Graham Greene, Aldous Huxley, Anthony Powell, Christopher Isherwood, W. H. Auden, E.M. Forster, Virginia Woolf, Nancy Mitford, all knew one another, corresponded, commented on one another’s work, characters, & sex lives. Osbert Sitwell was a minor player in this circle, but he was one of the most colorful figures: pompous, bitchy, exhibitionistic, & possessing a scathing wit.

Osbert, elder sister Edith & younger brother Sacheverell were wealthy, witty, well connected. British of a certain class, they were a deeply eccentric tight knit trio with artistic force to be reckoned. In the 21st century, only Edith’s work has kept the Sitwell a name of literary significance. But during their era Osbert was considered one of the best stylists in the English language, & brother Sacheverell was esteemed as a writer on architecture & gardens.


Like many men of his class who come late into their sexuality, Osbert settled on a younger & prettier man as his partner.

The person Osbert chose as his companion was David Horner, a tall, beautiful young man of younger than himself, a member of the ancient Horner family. Horner had no money of his own, but had recently been left a fortune by an older admirer. He saved the cash & lived off Osbert until the end of their time together, 40 later. Osbert must have thought he was getting a good gig for money & did not begrudge supporting the partner he loved. Sitwell: “Horner is a big gay butterfly, fluttering around & drawing honey from all the flowers.”

Horner was a compulsive troublemaker who purposely did a great deal of damage to Osbert’s relations with his siblings & his friends. The relationship seems to be made up of equal parts affection & financial interest, although though Horner had money of his own. They were together for decades until a last, bitter estrangement that was greeted with joy by sister Edith, who gave Horner the moniker “poor little David Copperfield” & spent years plotting against him.


Osbert died in 1969. His career had been a triumph of willpower over the limitations of his talent. As a writer, he was never added up to much, but I think there might be a movie in the story of his circle, with Stephen Fry as Osgood & Julian Sands as Horner.