The Brooknerian

I owe my start in life as a writer to Benedict Nicolson, who was editor of the Burlington Magazine from the end of the War until his death in 1978. Anita Brookner, 'Benedict Nicolson', Independent Magazine , 10 September 1994 Hearing that Anita Brookner, an all but unknown graduate student, was to be living in Paris, Nicolson 'mentioned that [she] might like to send him reviews of the major exhibitions'. It was, Brookner recalls, an amazing act of generosity. She looked forward to her monthly assignment, making herself known to dealers and collectors, tackling the 'dreadful Salon d'Automne with something like enthusiasm'. Her biggest cheque was for £19. My copy of the Burlington Magazine dates from May 1962 and finds Brookner, then in her thirties, in London. (She seems to have migrated regularly between the Two Cities, rather like Emma in Leaving Home .) At the Hazlitt Gallery she is predictably delighted and beguiled by an exhibition call...

...those Burlington years were ones of great happiness, a happiness which for me covers most of the period. People seemed to behave more reasonably in those remote days. The companionship engendered by the late War had not entirely fragmented. Nobody jogged. Nobody went to the gym. Nobody suffered from stress or received counselling. Acts of kindness seemed more common than at the present time. Of all the acts of kindness that came my way none was greater than Ben's: he conferred on me the precious - and unique - conviction that my presence could be taken for granted. He was a true friend. 'Benedict Nicolson', Independent Magazine , 10 September 1994 One recalls, reading that, Mrs May's dream vision of a 1950s paradise, a field of folk, in Visitors . Benedict Nicolson was editor of the Burlington Magazine from the end of the war until his death in 1978. Brookner identified him as the person to whom she owed her start in life as a writer. 'Ideally one should a...