Left Hand, Right Hand!.

About Left Hand, Right Hand!

Left Hand, Right Hand! is an autobiography in five volumes by the English poet and man of letters Osbert Sitwell. It relates in opulent detail the story of the author's early life in relation to his ancestors, his immediate family, especially his father Sir George Sitwell, and the fashionable and artistic world of his time. The five volumes are: Left Hand, Right Hand! (1944), re-titled in some editions The Cruel Month, about his ancestry and early childhood; The Scarlet Tree (1945), about his education at Eton and his first experiences of Italy; Great Morning (1947), about his boyhood and his peacetime service as an army officer; Laughter in the Next Room (1948), about his career after the First World War as a writer; and Noble Essences (1950), about his many notable friends. A sixth volume, Tales My Father Taught Me (1962), which was not formally included in the sequence, relates a number of further anecdotes about Sir George. Left Hand, Right Hand! has been acclaimed by both critics and readers from its first publication up to the present century, and is widely recognized as Sitwell's greatest work.