31 Facts About Christopher Isherwood

Christopher William Bradshaw Isherwood was an Anglo-American novelist, playwright, screenwriter, autobiographer, and diarist.

Christopher Isherwood was the elder son of Francis Edward Bradshaw Isherwood, known as Frank, a professional soldier in the York and Lancaster Regiment, and Kathleen Bradshaw Isherwood, nee Machell Smith, the only daughter of a successful wine merchant.

Christopher Isherwood was the grandson of John Henry Isherwood, squire of Marple Hall and Wyberslegh Hall, Cheshire, and he included among his ancestors the Puritan judge John Bradshaw, who signed the death warrant of King Charles I and served for two years as Lord President of the Council, effectively President of the English Republic.

Christopher Isherwood's mother, Kathleen, was, through her own mother, a member of the wealthy Greene brewing family of Greene King, and Christopher Isherwood was a cousin of the novelist Graham Greene, who was related to the brewing family.

At Repton, his boarding school in Derbyshire, Christopher Isherwood met his lifelong friend Edward Upward, with whom he invented an imaginary English village called Mortmere, as related in his fictional autobiography, Lions and Shadows.

Christopher Isherwood went up to Corpus Christi College, Cambridge, as a history scholar, wrote jokes and limericks on his second year Tripos and was asked to leave without a degree in 1925.

In October 1928, Christopher Isherwood enrolled as a medical student at King's College London, but he left after six months.

In March 1929, Christopher Isherwood joined Auden in Berlin, where Auden was spending a post-graduate year.

In Berlin, Christopher Isherwood completed his second novel, The Memorial, about the impact of the First World War on his family and his generation.

In 1932, Christopher Isherwood started a relationship with a young German, Heinz Neddermeyer.

Christopher Isherwood befriended Dodie Smith, a British novelist and playwright who had moved to California, and who became one of the few people to whom Christopher Isherwood showed his work in progress.

Christopher Isherwood considered becoming an American citizen in 1945 but balked at taking an oath that included the statement that he would defend the country.

Christopher Isherwood became an American citizen on 8 November 1946.

Christopher Isherwood began living with the photographer William "Bill" Caskey.

Christopher Isherwood wrote the prose and Caskey took the photographs for a 1949 book about their journey entitled The Condor and the Cows.

Christopher Isherwood taught a course on modern English literature at Los Angeles State College for several years during the 1950s and early 1960s.

Christopher Isherwood was diagnosed with prostate cancer in 1981, and died of the disease on 4 January 1986 at his Santa Monica home, aged 81.

Christopher Isherwood's body was donated to medical science at UCLA, and his ashes were later scattered at sea.

Bachardy became a successful artist with an independent reputation, and his portraits of the dying Christopher Isherwood became well known after Christopher Isherwood's death.

Over time, Christopher Isherwood developed a close friendship with Huxley, with whom he sometimes collaborated.

Christopher Isherwood became a dedicated Vedantist himself and was initiated by Prabhavananda, his guru.

From 1950 to 1978, Christopher Isherwood gave 53 lectures at the Hollywood and Santa Barbara Vedanta Temples.

Christopher Isherwood was very involved in the production of the bi-monthly journal of the Vedanta Society of Southern California, Vedanta and the West.

Christopher Isherwood's father, Frank Bradshaw-Christopher Isherwood, was a colonel in the British Army.

Christopher Isherwood was killed during WWI in the Battle Ypres, France in May 1915, at the age of 46.

The Memorial was the first of what would become the trademark for Christopher Isherwood: reflecting his life experience into the plot of a novel.

Christopher Isherwood describes the times in his autobiographical novels The Berlin Stories.

In 1933, Christopher Isherwood fled Germany with his friend Heinz Neddermeyer seeking asylum for Heinz - who was refused entry to England.

Back in London, Christopher Isherwood's sympathies were with the left, but although the Anti-war movement flourished after WWI, it was fractured into opposing ideological groups.

Christopher Isherwood wrote the following articles that appeared in Vedanta and the West:.

Christopher Isherwood edited the selection and provided an introduction and three articles.