Ronald Firbank

Arthur Annesley Ronald Firbank (17 January 1886 – 21 May 1926) was an English novelist and playwright. His works have long enjoyed a cult success, and were a formative influence on the styles of Evelyn Waugh and Anthony Powell.

Ronald Firbank (1917)

Quotes

• There was a pause – just long enough for an angel to pass, flying slowly.
  • Vainglory (1915), cited from The Complete Ronald Firbank (London: Duckworth, 1961) p. 117.

• The world is so disgracefully managed, one hardly knows to whom to complain.
  • Vainglory, cited from The Complete Ronald Firbank (London: Duckworth, 1961) p. 149.

• I suppose when there's no more room for another crow's-foot, one attains a sort of peace?
  • Valmouth (1918), cited from The Complete Ronald Firbank (London: Duckworth, 1961) p. 448.

• Princess: I am always disappointed with mountains. There are no mountains in the world as high as I could wish.
  Adrian: No?
  Princess: They irritate me invariably. I should like to shake Switzerland.
  • The Princess Zoubaroff, Act I, sc. iv (1920), cited from Steven Moore (ed.) Complete Plays (Normal, Ill.: Dalkey Archive Press, 1994) p. 55.

• "Oh! help me, heaven," she prayed, "to be decorative and to do right!"
  • The Flower Beneath the Foot (1923), cited from The Complete Ronald Firbank (London: Duckworth, 1961) p. 516.

• I remember the average curate at home as something between a eunuch and a snigger.
  • The Flower Beneath the Foot, cited from The Complete Ronald Firbank (London: Duckworth, 1961) p. 534.

Quotes about Ronald Firbank

• On we read, confusing the characters with the incidents and neglecting the outcome, but tickled by the images and the turns of the talk. It is frivolous stuff, and how rare, how precious is frivolity! How few writers can prostitute all their powers!
  • E. M. Forster, "Ronald Firbank", in Abinger Harvest (1936; 1961), p. 139

• He had something of the air, if one can imagine such a combination, of a witty and decadent Red Indian.
  • Osbert Sitwell, Noble Essences (1950), p. 69

• It is the peculiar temper of Firbank's humour which divides him from the nineties. His raw material, allowing for the inevitable changes of fashion, is almost identical with Oscar Wilde's – the lives of rich, slightly decadent people seen against a background of traditional culture, grand opera, the picture galleries and the Court; but Wilde's was at heart radically sentimental. His wit is ornamental; Firbank's is structural. Wilde is rococo; Firbank is baroque.
  • Evelyn Waugh, 'Ronald Firbank', Life and Letters (March 1929), quoted in The Essays, Articles and Reviews of Evelyn Waugh, ed. Donat Gallagher (1983), pp. 56-57